Push To Close Up Rail Spur Fuels Dispute School District, Other Public Entities Would Save, But Subdivision Would Suffer
Population growth is headed for a messy collision with historic railroad routes in Kootenai County.
At stake are hundreds of thousands of tax dollars and a possible rerouting of trains that would directly affect thousands of people.
The city of Coeur d’Alene, the Post Falls Highway District, the Idaho Transportation Department and the Coeur d’Alene School District want to pay Union Pacific Railroad to abandon a dilapidated spur line. Such an abandonment would save money for public entities that would otherwise have to build pricey railroad crossings and other improvements.
But abandonment of the Coeur d’Alene line would reroute a noisy night train through the city of Post Falls and its proposed 650-acre Montrose subdivision. That has Post Falls city officials crying foul and the subdivision’s developer, Greenstone Corp. of Spokane, withholding land needed to build a place to switch Union Pacific trains onto Burlington Northern’s track. Such a switch would be necessary if the spur line in Coeur d’Alene were abandoned.
The complex dispute began about a year ago, when the school district started building its new middle school off Kathleen Avenue. The school is adjacent to a run-down spur line that Union Pacific has stopped maintaining and considered abandoning. One train, pulling about six cars, periodically wobbles along the track over Ramsey Road, Kathleen and nine other streets for shipping orders from lumber mills. Despite the line’s dilapidated state, it hasn’t been formally abandoned, which means the school district will be required to pay for a $250,000 modern crossing at the access road it’s building onto Kathleen.
“I wasn’t real jazzed about spending that kind of money and then a year later finding out they are abandoning that line,” Assistant Superintendent Dave Teater said. “So we began to get a lot of players involved.”
The school district offered $150,000 toward the abandonment. The city of Coeur d’Alene budgeted $30,000, a pittance compared to the millions in expensive new signals that would be required if the city wanted to improve Ramsey, Kathleen or any of its roads at rail crossings. The Post Falls Highway district offered another $50,000, hoping to avoid a multimillion-dollar repair to a bridge that exists solely to route traffic away from the rail line.
If the line is not abandoned, the highway district will either have to spend money repairing the bridge, or slap load limits on commercial traffic, hurting trucking along Seltice Way.
Idaho Transportation Department spokesman Scott Stokes said the abandonment also would help local governments and improve safety by shutting down more than a dozen crossings. The department tentatively offered $150,000 toward the effort, which the railroad has predicted will cost $600,000.
“It’s a difficult judgement call for us to make,” Stokes said. “Maybe there’s something we can do to help the city of Post Falls with their concerns.”
Post Falls City Administrator Jim Hammond certainly hopes so.
“We’re getting screwed on this,” Hammond said. “The railroad is getting money to save what they don’t want to spend improving their line that’s been poorly maintained,” he said. “There’s no profit to our community to shoulder this burden long term. The school and highway districts and city of Coeur d’Alene, they get rid of all their burdens, while we are stuck putting in a quarter of a million in crossings.”
Though more train accidents happen on the high-speed lines that zip through rural areas, the expensive new crossings are often required within city limits, where trains lurch along at a tortoise pace. A Post Falls train motors so sluggishly, for example, train employees have been spotted hopping off at the Spokane Street Conoco gas station to buy a soda, and hopping back on without even slowing the train.
Post Falls’ primary ally in the dispute is Greenstone Corporation - a Spokane development company proposing the 650-acre Montrose subdivision.
If the Coeur d’Alene spur line is abandoned, the railroad claims it must build a connection onto Burlington Northern lines on three acres of land within the development. That means more hazard and noise, since night trains must blow their whistle at every crossing.
Jason Wheaton of Greenstone said home buyers would be frightened away by the prospect of hearing train traffic at night.
Further frustrating the company is an option everyone but the two railroads can live with: Sharing one rail line in Kootenai County, running just one train to the mills. Such a joint use is typical in towns with little rail business.
“The amount of business they are doing doesn’t justify having the citizens of Post Falls stay up at night and wasting $600,000 of taxpayers’ money,” Wheaton said. “It’s ridiculous that there has to be these two competitive lines serving two mills that in 20 years might be gone.”
At the turn of the century, trains carrying timber to and from North Idaho’s booming mills were commonplace and welcome. But as the natural resource industries have declined, so have the number of railroad customers. Idaho Veneer and Idaho Forest Industries are the only two shippers left on the disputed spur line.
“Certainly we are in a new era,” said Union Pacific Railroad spokesman Mike Furtney, of abandonment negotiations throughout the West.
Union Pacific fears losing a competitive edge by moving onto the tracks of a rival railroad. “There are other options,” Furtney admitted. “… none of which are as attractive as abandonment.”
For example, the switch to one track could be made in Spokane, but traffic there is already jammed, transportation officials contend. Besides, North Idaho’s mills want continued separate service from both lines, in order to keep shipping costs low.
Developers say their three acres of land in Post Falls is worth $450,000, but they don’t plan to give it up without a fight. The railroad will have to go to court to condemn the property.
“Now we understand what the term railroaded means,” Wheaton said. “If we have to play hard ball a little for that better option, we will. We can make it easy for them to get the three acres or difficult. We are not going to roll over and take that $450,000 to save the school district its $250,000.”
Railroad officials say they are negotiating, but have no predictions for resolution.
“When you talk about railroad negotiations this is moving along at the speed of wind,” said Don Fyffe, Burlington Northern-Santa Fe’s joint facilities manager in Seattle.
That may not be fast enough to save the Coeur d’Alene School District $250,000. The new middle school is slated to open next fall. To put signals in place, the district must order the expensive equipment within two months.
The next meeting of all parties involved in the flap is slated for October.
“It’s a tough one,” Stokes said. “We’ll have to put our heads together and make the best decision we can.”
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