Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio is calling for a Federal Railroad Administration investigation into the Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad’s closure of the Coos Bay short line.

DeFazio sent the agency’s administrator, Joseph Boardman, a letter Wednesday asking his agency to review CORP engineering reports. They are scheduled to talk Tuesday. DeFazio also wants the agency’s inspectors on the ground — in railroad tunnels the company deemed unsafe.

“I also request that FRA tunnel inspectors perform a physical inspection of the line and evaluate what, if any, repairs are necessary to make the line safe for operation,” DeFazio wrote.

The letter followed the railroad’s action to file an embargo on the line Sept. 21. The embargo indicated the line was closed because three tunnels are unsafe. On Thursday, the railroad agency’s public affairs specialist, Warren Flatau, didn’t say how soon FRA inspectors might be on the Coos Bay line’s tracks.

“I wouldn’t want to speculate,” he said.

“Unequivocally, we will seek to be fully responsive to the congressman’s concerns,” he added.

More pressure

The state of Oregon also wants answers.

Railroad officials said they based their decision to close the tracks on engineers’ reports and their concern about employee safety. The governor’s office and the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Rail Division are demanding copies of the private engineering reports. The state hadn’t received copies as of Thursday morning.

But that’s not the only pressure on the railroad.

ODOT has put on hold plans to give CORP $7 million from the 2005 Legislature’s Connect Oregon program to help build a $9.6 million rail yard next to an existing one in Winchester.

“That project comes into question with all the recent events,” said Kelly Taylor, Rail Division administrator.

It’s unusual for a private railroad to get any public money. But, the railroad made a convincing case.

The project was to alleviate over capacity at the rail yard in Roseburg. The railroad had said in a grant request two years ago that the project would give forest products companies more opportunities to ship by rail. The Coos Bay line served at least three South Coast wood products companies, which now have no direct access to rail service.

“We need to understand what’s happening, what’s going on and whether or not this project should go forward,” Taylor said.

On Wednesday, the final train slowly slid out of Coos Bay. The engineer aboard said he was heading out to pick up the railcars remaining at the sawmill on the North Spit. Those cars were leaving the area for Eugene this morning. CORP has told sawmill managers this is the last load.

Silence on the line

CORP has issued no public statements since an initial press release announcing the closure. But this week, railroad officials sat down with members of the Southwest Oregon Economic Expansion and Transportation Team in a closed door meeting in Roseburg. The group gathered as it has for nearly two years to talk about the Oregon Gateway project to attract a container shipping terminal development to Coos Bay. CORP and Union Pacific staffers are part of that group, as they have been all along.

People attending the meeting reported that the Coos Bay line closure came up. The conversation was tense. CORP officials reportedly said the railroad had invested $47 million over the years in upgrading tracks in Oregon. Rep. Wayne Krieger, R-Gold Beach, apparently challenged that. He demanded to see the documents proving it.

Throughout those meetings in the past, the group has discussed poor conditions of the CORP’s tracks on the Siskiyou line down to California, said Rep. Susan Morgan, R-Myrtle Creek.

“The railroad has made no secret about it,” she said.

In fact, the railroad is under a 2-year-old safety compliance agreement with the Federal Railroad Administration. The feds issued it less than two years ago after deciding the railroad was inadequately maintaining and inspecting its tracks. The agreement pointed out that in visits to CORP tracks in Oregon from 1998 to late 2005, FRA and state inspectors found 4,067 noncompliance conditions. That included everything from gauge defects to defective cross ties, rails and rail joints. There was no mention of tunnels.

Profit or not?

Repairs are costly, especially now when rail business might be slowing.

Morgan said she knows sawmills have cut production due to a slump in the housing market, which undoubtedly has affected shipments to the railroad. A Georgia-Pacific employee said that has been a factor in a slowdown in operations at the Coos Bay sawmill. No numbers are available on the exact number of rail cars heading from the South Coast to Eugene.

In 2003, the railroad company took a big hit when Weyerhaeuser Co. closed its mill on the North Spit. Then, the railroad lost 315 cars per month. This year in an annual report to the Oregon Railroad Division, CORP said it moved 45,017 rail cars on its Oregon tracks in 2006. Taylor estimated 10 to 15 percent of those came from the Coos Bay line and said she has no idea whether the line was profitable. It’s a private business. The company doesn’t have to share that information.

“It either generates revenue or you don’t do it anymore,” she said.

Speculation

In the end, though, state officials and local lawmakers say they are disturbed most by the attitude and responses of officials of CORP and its parent company RailAmerica. When asked what their plan is to repair the Coos Bay short line and re-open for business, officials were blunt.

“We have no plans,” Taylor said of CORP’s response this week to the officials gathered at the meeting in Roseburg.

“They got asked again, ‘We have no plans,’” Taylor said of the repeated response.

“Saying you are calling an embargo with no plan is absurd,” she added.

That’s led to speculation.

“If you’re not going to make repairs, then you head down the abandonment line,” Taylor said.

There’s a federal process required for abandonment. In the end, simply it can mean a railroad walks away. It can pull up its tracks, sell them for scrap and sell the right of way.

There have been rumors of exactly that. In past months railroad online bloggers have suggested the railroad might also end operations on the Siskiyou line. CORP reportedly denied that when pressed for an answer.

“It’s a real negative atmosphere when everybody is basing the discussions on rumors,” Morgan said. “What we really need is the CORP to sit down at the table.”