Saturday, April 26, 2014

Silverton-Stayton Railroad Abandoned? Rails-to-Trails Opportunity! - updated

The Brewfest at the Oregon Garden is this weekend, and imagine you had a bike path to Silverton separated from road traffic. Wouldn't that be terrific?!

A reader sends word that the Union Pacific short line recently operated as the Willamette Valley Railway between Silverton and Stayton may be abandoned soon.

Willamette Valley Railway Shortline (yellow)
between Silverton and Stayton
According to a March piece in the paper:
[S]ervice to Stayton was suspended in January 2012 after a storm compromised the tracks north of Aumsville. Operators of the Willamette Valley Railway have been seeking abandonment for much more of the track, reportedly everything south of Mt. Angel.

“There hasn’t been a train here for two years, plus, at this point in time,” [Stayton City Planner Dan] Fleishman said.

He said area businesses that were customers of the rail line prior to the 2012 halt included Wilco and RedBuilt Engineered Wood Products. NORPAC, which has spurs to its food processing plant, has not used the service in years, and Fleishman said a representative from the company indicated little interest.
The paper said there was some interest in an excursion train, but the cost seemed prohibitive.


North-south route follows low elevations
in Waldo Hills, parallels Howell Prairie Road
Gov. T.T. Geer
Another possibility of course is to acquire the railroad right-of-way for walking and biking trails. Imagine a gateway to Silver Falls park, or to the emerging wine country out here.

(Not to mention its link to the Geer line, an east-west spur into Salem that parallels State Street, and links to the Geer family, and the fact that Governor Geer biked and signed Oregon's first bike path legislation. A trail here should be named after Governor Geer - the Geer Trail!)

Geer rode his bike
The reader writes
The railroad between Silverton and Stayton is only weeks away from being abandoned. After the application to abandon the line is filed with the Surface Transportation Board, the public has only a few weeks to file an application with the STB to let them know of the intent to convert the railroad right of way to a trail. The application should come from a public agency such as Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. The OPRD manages several rails to trails in Oregon.
This is one of those rare opportunities, and at the moment may require acting first and asking questions later.

We talk about how our approach to road building inclines us towards building new shiny things before maintaining old, existing, and tattered things. Parks and Recreation is no different, and we should be aware that new parks also require future maintenance. And who knows how you'd pay for the trail construction.

At the same time, railroads near cities aren't abandoned every day, and at the very least, this one is worth a more detailed look to determine its recreational possibilities. With such a path, some people might even commute between Salem and Silverton, especially in the summer.

There are real possibilities here worth a closer look. Opportunity is knocking!

Folks need to contact "a public agency to ask the Surface Transportation Board to not allow UP to sell" the line.

Contact Rocky Houston and Steve Kay with State Parks and Recreation to let them know this is a rare opportunity and deserves further study.


With enough interest, the next steps can be formulated.

(Obviously there's more to this story and we'll update the post or post further on it.)

Update, May 2nd

So the Stayton reporter for the SJ got info from the operator, who suggests that he's not "weeks away" from abandoning it:
“Right now we haven’t filed anything,” said David Root, general manager of Willamette Valley Railway, which operates the rail service between Woodburn and Stayton, including the stretch in question south of Silverton.

That stretch hasn’t seen an engine roll south since winter 2012 when storms compromised the tracks in a half dozen places, including one spot near Macleay that cost the railroad $8,000 to repair. Willamette Valley Railway repaired that area and buttressed the others enough to get an engine and railcars of goods out of the Stayton area.

Root said he is currently in the process of penciling out a feasibility study that will underscore how much commerce, how many railcars of goods, would be needed to ship in and out of the area south of Silverton each year to make that part of the railway’s business worthwhile.

He said it was feasible as recently as a half-decade ago before recession and other circumstances syphoned off a significant chunk of the shipping.

“We’re having discussions with Union Pacific (owner of the track), and discussions about services,” Root said.

And, yes, he added, discussions about abandoning the rail south of Silverton.
It still seems like a very much worthwhile exercise to lay the groundwork for a potential filing should the line remain uneconomical. At the same time, as a former rail administrator notes on a comment to the story,
if you believe in a healthy economy and envirnomentally sustainable transportation, then you should want to save the railroad--not turn it into a trail. This line has potential for hauling freight and people and that's what we should be supporting.
She's right that we have been sometimes too quick to abandon rail lines and that as our transportation mix changes, rail will be more and more important.

But if the line will in fact be abandoned, it would be nice to be able to have the homework done and be able to step in with a reasonably complete proposal.

To that end, in a comment below, Oregon Parks and Recreation makes this request:
it would be more constructive to brainstorm possible partners. Who should be at the table? Cities? Clubs? County? It's like a dinner party ... once you figure out who the host is and the guests are seated at the table, we can do our butler thing and find a way to serve. Sometimes we take a more active role and host the party ourselves. So imagining a list of possible partners would be the most helpful thing at the moment.

10 comments:

Walker said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Walker said...

Sample letter suggestion here

http://lovesalem.blogspot.com/2014/04/opportunity-pounding-on-our-door-will.html

Chris Havel said...

We find the idea interesting. The way we work, though, is not by swooping in and creating a new state-owned project, but by finding local partners who are willing to step up and take the lead -- with our help -- to make a project happen. That's really the next step. Rocky Houston is indeed the correct contact for something like this, but he is already aware of the idea.

Thanks.

--
Chris, Oregon Parks and Recreation Department

Salem Breakfast on Bikes said...

Thanks for the clarification, Chris!

As word - on the hasty side perhaps - circulated, it seemed that there was value in a "volume" response to OPRD in order to show depth of interest. If this is misguided, let us know!

Thanks for stopping by!

Chris Havel said...

We'd like to help if we can, but I wouldn't invest time in making us aware of the opportunity (we're there now). It's early days -- the route isn't even available yet -- so it would be more constructive to brainstorm possible partners. Who should be at the table? Cities? Clubs? County? It's like a dinner party ... once you figure out who the host is and the guests are seated at the table, we can do our butler thing and find a way to serve. Sometimes we take a more active role and host the party ourselves. So imagining a list of possible partners would be the most helpful thing at the moment.

Salem Breakfast on Bikes said...

The SJ counters:

"A little bit of misinformation goes a long way.

Between a blurb out of a blog and a Facebook post Tuesday, both hinging on inaccurate information, scores of outdoor recreation enthusiasts were prepared to roll up their sleeves, pitch in and create a recreational use trail through the east Willamette Valley between Stayton and Silverton.

Salem Breakfast on Bikes blog, quoting a post on Salem Area Trails Alliance that’s attributed simply to “the reader” stated:

“The railroad between Silverton and Stayton is only weeks away from being abandoned. After the application to abandon the line is filed with the Surface Transportation Board, the public has only a few weeks to file an application with the STB to let them know of the intent to convert the railroad right of way to a trail.”

Both sources urged readers to contact Oregon Parks and Recreation and elected officials voicing support for just such a project, which they did.

One problem: no one has filed for, much less is close to, an abandonment of the rail line.

“Right now we haven’t filed anything,” said David Root, general manager of Willamette Valley Railway, which operates the rail service between Woodburn and Stayton, including the stretch in question south of Silverton.
"

Anonymous said...

Interesting. Salem Area Trail Alliance has scrubbed the posts from their facebook and blog. Just deleted them outright.

Salem Breakfast on Bikes said...

updated with bits from here and there

Anonymous said...

You might be interested in a meeting that's been announced -

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/local/silverton/2014/06/13/meeting-focus-future-east-marion-rail-line/10440269/

"A public information meeting has been scheduled to answer key questions about the future of the East Marion Rail line, 3 p.m., Wednesday, June 18 at Silver Spur RV Park, 12622 Silverton Road NE.

'The purpose of the meeting is to provide factual answers to the fundamental questions that have arisen from the various entities who have interest in the line,' said Terry Kuenzi, Treasurer of Cascade Community Railway, Inc., the chief sponsor of the meeting."

Trainsoverpeople said...

Rail services needs to be restored.