The Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad has given notice it’s ready to abandon the Coos Bay Rail Line.

The news came as no surprise this week to the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay and others who already have seen signs of disuse. Trees blown down by winter storms are visible on the tracks between Mapleton and Florence. Sand has drifted over sections of the almost 3-year-old port-owned, CORP-leased rail spur on Coos Bay’s North Spit.

Martin Callery, port director of communications and freight mobility, said the sand, if left on the tracks, could sink into the ballast and eventually throw the rail and ties out of alignment.

“There used to be weekly inspections, and CORP sent in a crew to shovel sand off the line,” Callery said.

That hasn’t happened in months. RailAmerica’s Western region vice president, Bob Jones, said earlier this spring that no company inspectors had checked the tracks over the winter.

Callery recently flew over the tracks and looked at the line from public access points with staff from the transportation consulting firm R.L. Banks & Associates. The checks are part of the port’s due diligence effort to try to wrest control of the rail line away from CORP.

“There were only two small slide areas that we saw from the air,” he said.

One was between Florence and Lakeside, the other on the north end between Eugene and Swisshome.

The port hasn’t heard from railroad officials for a couple of months, and Callery doesn’t believe they’ve made efforts to maintain the tracks since closing the line in September.

“At this point in time, communication is attorney to attorney,” he said.

CORP’s parent company, Florida-based RailAmerica, filed the abandonment notice Monday afternoon with the railroad-regulating U.S. Surface Transportation Board.

The 79-page document listed who and what are to blame:

* Three tunnels are dangerous.

* The Union Pacific, which owns and leases the tracks to CORP from North Bend to Coquille, won’t help pay for repairs.

* The Oregon International Port of Coos Bay refused to pay into CORP’s proposal to fix and subsidize the railroad.

* Shippers likewise wouldn’t pay.

*The state of Oregon repeatedly refused to discuss public-private partnership offers from CORP, unless the railroad were to open the line first.

“Accordingly, following the rejection of its most recent proposal by the State of Oregon on April 21, 2008, and subsequent statements by UP indicating that it has no intention of participating financially in any plan to save the Coos Bay Rail Line, CORP has begun the process of seeking authority to abandon the line,” the document said.

The company says it won’t reopen the 136-mile rail line. It said in legal documents it intends to start the formal process to abandon the tracks and tunnels within three years. The filing came in response to a demand by the STB last month that the railroad justify why it shouldn’t be forced to fix the tunnels and reopen the tracks or give up ownership. The STB characterized the track closure as an unlawful abandonment.

In Monday’s filing, RailAmerica contended it did invest in its tracks and tunnels, so much that from 2003 to 2007 CORP spent 28 percent of the annual gross freight revenues just on normal maintenance. In 2006, the company said, it spent 32 percent of its $2.93 million in revenues for maintenance.

The filing is just the first step in abandonment, but apparently not a formal notice of intent to walk away. That could come mid-summer.

Company officials weren’t readily available to comment Tuesday. RailAmerica’s assistant general manager of engineering, Patrick Kerr, said he wasn’t able to say much about the situation when asked late Tuesday afternoon if the company intends to sell the line or rip up and recycle the steel tracks.

“I think that just gives us all those options,” he said.

No other company or public entity can step in immediately to repair tunnels and tracks or open the line. Engineers already have said bids for any summertime tunnel repairs had to have been issued this spring. Without willing partners, CORP didn’t move on repairs.

The Port of Coos Bay has attorneys working to file a feeder line application to the STB to force the railroad to fix the line or sell it. That will take months. The port will have to submit a plan for buying and operating the line for three years. Even then, the port has no intention of running the railroad. It would seek another company to do it.

Oregon officials still were reviewing the documents they received Tuesday. The governor’s office wasn’t ready to comment other than saying the state would file a response in the coming weeks, but both Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Gordon Smith, R-Ore., had read enough to at least issue terse press releases.

“The railroad’s choice to abandon these tracks is leaving our rail- dependent communities out to dry,” Smith wrote. “If they will not repair them, we need to move ahead with a plan to get another carrier in and get these tracks up and running.”

Click Here for CORP response to feds

Click Here for CORP order