NOTI — The Coos Bay Rail Link has exactly three flatbed railcars riding its rails. No, they aren’t hauling any cargo. They are helping restore rail service to shippers along the 111-mile line.

Their current home is inside Tunnel 13. It cuts through a hillside a few miles south of Noti, a small community on state Highway 126. The railcars are loaded with bags of concrete, a generator, a compressor, a portable toilet and equipment to patch up the tunnel.

A seven-man crew has been pulling out rotting timber sets and bolting rocks into place since Sept. 8. The work has been going well, said Luke Erickson, an engineer with Jacobs Associates of Portland, who has been looking over the work done by LRL Construction of Tillamook.

The damage in the 2,489-foot-long tunnel is focused primarily on a 118-foot stretch.

“It was pretty darn stable,” Erickson said.

The repairs should be completed within the next 10 days, Erickson said, at which point the crew will head west to Tunnel 15, located just south of Florence. That’s the tunnel that poses the largest task for the workers, Erickson said. It partially collapsed in 2006, resulting in a short-term closure of the line, said Martin Callery, spokesman for the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay.

Continued concerns about safety in Tunnel 15 and two others eventually prompted the Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad to shut down the line. The port has since purchased it.

The tunnel still is in bad enough shape that inspectors, who toured the tunnels, declined to go through. Instead, they inspected each end, Callery said. Workers plan to install steel sets to further brace walls, in addition to the kind of work they’ve been doing in Tunnel 13.

The goal is to complete work on Tunnel 15 by the end of November, allowing workers to fix tunnels 18 and 20 by February, Erickson said.

The crew consists of several LRL employees from Tillamook, a few union workers from the Eugene area and one Coos Bay worker.

They work four-day weeks, mobilizing outside the tunnel at 6 a.m., said Superintendent Dave Wilks.

They’ve spent most days removing bad timbers in the morning, then bolting rocks and spraying concrete on the walls in the afternoon. Wilks said all the bad timbers have been removed and now the focus is making sure rocks won’t fall onto the tracks. The team drilled about 40 holes Thursday and was in the process of putting 10-foot bolts into place as anchors.

Once those are in, grout will be put around the bolts and then a final layer of concrete will be sprayed on.

The crews also will make sure the drainage system in the tunnel is in good condition, so remaining wood timbers don’t deteriorate.

“The No. 1 enemy in a tunnel is moisture,” Erickson said.