Oregon lawmakers and leaders of several South Coast businesses are rumbling over rail. They’re not moving down the tracks but testifying over the future of the defunct Coos Bay rail line.

This U.S. Surface Transportation Board hearing in Eugene was to open at 9 a.m. today with testimony from Gov. Ted Kulongoski and U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio. Even before today’s sun rose, advocates of re-opening the rail line were sending out messages.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden sent out a press release late Wednesday calling on federal regulators to “rein in the abuse” of the Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad. Wyden went on to urge them to approve the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay’s request to take over the line CORP wants to abandon.

“Many railroads are reporting record profits, reinvesting in their infrastructure, and doing an excellent job of serving the American economy and the American people,” Wyden said in a release.

Wyden was to tell regulators just that at today’s hearing.

“This final gambit seems more motivated by spite and profit than by any sense of obligation to the people of Oregon.”

 Wyden said that nationwide, short line railroads save shippers 20 percent to 50 percent compared to truck transportation. They also take 30 million truckloads per year off the highways. Short line railroads save 356 million gallons of fuel each year, he said.

 “This tactic of salting the earth is disturbing and should be seen for what it is: one more way to wring every last dime out of a rail system that CORP failed to maintain from the beginning,” Wyden said. “No shipper, no business, and no family should suffer because CORP and its parent companies made a deliberate decision to fail.”