Planned mountain train so far just a fiscal drain

By The associated Press

	Kevin Phelps
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The idea for a tourist train that would depart from downtown and deposit riders somewhere near the base of Mount Rainier goes back to at least the late 1980s.

"The train to the mountain has a lot of sex appeal," Councilman Kevin Phelps told The News Tribune of Tacoma.

Interest is driven by the prospect of diverting some of the 2 million annual visitors to Mount Rainier National Park into Tacoma shops and hotels. With that goal in mind, the city even bought a railroad in the mid-1990s, with hopes of building a profitable freight business to subsidize the tourist train.

Tacoma Rail, which already provided freight service to Tacoma's industrial Tideflats, became one of the largest short lines in the country when it added its Mountain Division running from Tacoma to Morton, southwest of Mount Rainier, and to Chehalis in southwest Washington. In all, the city-owned line has more than 170 miles of track.

But the freight line is bleeding money. The train to the mountain remains many years and at least $15 million away from becoming a reality.

Last year, City Council members learned that the railroad had lost its biggest customer to bankruptcy and was losing about $70,000 out of the city's general fund per month as a result. Not counting depreciation, the railroad is losing about $55,000 per month.

Rebuilding the tracks to accommodate a passenger train has proved far more expensive and time-consuming than expected.

The tracks, one of the last remaining sections of the old Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Co. still in use, sustained years of neglect and deferred maintenance during the waning days of the railroad.

After the former Milwaukee Road shut down its Puget Sound operations in the late 1970s, Weyerhaeuser bought part of the line and operated the railroad under a subsidiary.

When the city acquired the line in the early 1990s, miles of the track were impassable.

The Mountain Division of Tacoma Rail took over operations in November 1998. Since then, the city has raised about $6.3 million in grants and donations while working to restore the track.

Tacoma Rail has succeeded in making the entire 131-mile line passable, but some sections remain limited to freight trains traveling no faster than 10 mph.

That's too slow for a tourist train. To make the trip to Mount Rainier an acceptable two-hour journey, the tracks must be safe enough for trains to travel at least 25 mph.

Tacoma Rail has nine customers, including Boeing, which uses the train to haul material for building airplane wings into Frederickson. But the operation was dealt a blow when its biggest customer, Spanaway Lumber, went bankrupt, railroad superintendent Dennis Dean said.

"There's no question there's not sufficient revenue at this time," Dean said. "The railroad operation pays for itself," Dean said. "What's not paid for is 20 years of deferred maintenance."

He's urging patience as the railroad attempts to build its business.

"If the 'train to the mountain' vision is still a good vision, and if you want freight to build it, it's going to take 10 years," Dean said. "It takes a long time to build freight customers."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company