Railroad takes over short-line service for Thurston County, Port of Olympia

Those big piles of wood across from Marathon Park on Deschutes Parkway in Olympia were put there by the new railroad in town.

Genesee and Wyoming Inc. is now hauling freight on a 12-mile stretch of track in Thurston County known as the Belmore Line. The company leases the track from owner BNSF Railroad and operates locally on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Short-line railroad Tacoma Rail had leased the track for 11 years before ending the arrangement in March because of a lack of business.

The wood piles on Deschutes Parkway are old railroad ties set for recycling. Genesee and Wyoming is replacing about 4,000 ties while laying down more rocks, known as ballast, to keep the ties in place.

The railroad has agreed to upgrade the line’s infrastructure as part of the lease with BNSF, said Josh Connell, general manager of Genesee’s Pacific Region. He said the debris piles on Deschutes Parkway will be removed by the end of this weekend.

Genesee’s Pacific Region includes two existing railroad lines in Washington — based in Centralia and Omak — along with two in California and two in Oregon. The company owns or leases 121 total freight railroads across the United States as well as in Europe and Australia. The railroad owes its unusual name to the two upstate New York counties served by its original 14-mile line.

The Belmore Line runs from East Olympia into the Port of Olympia, and from Olympia to the end of the line near 66th Avenue Southwest in Tumwater. The railroad transfers freight cars at the Thurston-Pierce county line to BNSF Railroad, which then takes the cargo for shipping across the country.

Thurston County customers on the route include Pepsi Northwest Beverages, masonry manufacturer Mutual Materials and, most notably, the Port of Olympia. Connell said Genesee has not hauled any shipments from the Port since taking over the line.

“We’re trying to work with the Port to grow their business,” Connell told The Olympian. “Most of our work is on the Tumwater side.”

In the meantime, Connell said the railroad is hauling commodities such as corn syrup and plastic pellets.

“There are no hazardous materials that we transport,” said Connell, adding that “we’re happy to be down in the Olympia area.”

Tacoma Rail’s decision to end service in Thurston County was hastened by vandalism in 2014. A concrete block on the tracks near the Bonneville power station in Tumwater had punctured a locomotive’s fuel tank and spilled 1,700 gallons of diesel — resulting in a cleanup that cost about $430,000.

Tacoma Rail superintendent Dale King previously told The Olympian that the company had been “running a losing operation” in Thurston County and had failed to break even most years. King also noted the oil industry’s impact on shipping, especially with the steep decline in shipments of oil fracking supplies known as ceramic proppants at the Port of Olympia.

The Port’s last shipment of ceramic proppants was in January 2015. However, agricultural products offer at least one avenue for boosting business.

In March, the Port received its first shipment of organic corn from Turkey. So far, the corn has been transported via truck to farms in Washington and British Columbia for use as animal feed.

Executive director Ed Galligan praised the Port’s new partnership with Genesee and said the railroad will begin shipping corn soon.

“We are anticipating in the next couple of weeks potentially having some of that corn go into rail cars,” said Galligan, noting the Port’s effort to recover from the lack of rail traffic amid declining oil prices. “We are working pretty diligently on expanding and diversifying the cargo base.”

This story was originally published May 12, 2016 at 3:23 PM with the headline "Railroad takes over short-line service for Thurston County, Port of Olympia."