The Washington Eastern Railroad (WER) crew has been busy repairing track defects along the Central Washington Branch of the Palouse River and Coulee City Rail System (PCC) in recent weeks.
“The work will take the track out of exempted status,” WER Operations Manager Gary Durr said.
Exempted status is a Federal Railroad Association (FRA) designation that restricts WER train speeds to 10 mph and gives the railroad unlimited time to correct track defects, Durr said.
Being non-exempt allows the railroad to start to “improve track speeds.” The flip side, however, is the railroad has 30 days to repair any track defects found by the FRA. Their current exempt status gives them unlimited time to make repairs.
“It puts us back in the rule game and puts us in a time limit,” Durr said. “But it also means our track is better quality track.”
The current effort is part of an upgrade process underway that will eventually allow WER trains to travel twice as fast as today. The CW Branch’s tracks will be upgraded during the next two years from Class I to Class II track, allowing for speeds up to 25 mph.
About $4 million of an $11.3 million federal BUILD grant for upgrades to the entire PCC system will be used for the CW Branch, along with a $740,000 state grant — plus an additional $640,000 in matching funds in labor and equipment from WER — that will together fund the improvements.
Part of the state-owned Palouse and Coulee City railroad system, the CW branch is a 108-mile-long stretch of track that runs between Cheney and Coulee City that transported 33 million bushels of wheat valued at $139 million in 2016. The CW Branch alone was responsible for approximately half of that amount, according to state officials.
WER took over operation and management of the CW Branch last October.
Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].
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