This time it’s a BNSF Railway-owned line in northeastern Washington and southern British Columbia currently operated by OmniTrax subsidiary Kettle Falls International Railway.
The new operator, according to Surface Transportation Board filings, will be St. Paul & Pacific Northwest Railroad Co., a unit of Progressive Rail Inc. of Lakeville, Minn. The new operator expects to take over operations by Jan. 1 with a 10-year lease.
The line runs north from the BNSF mainline at Chewelah, Wash., northwest of Spokane, to a split at Kettle Falls, with one of the branches extending to the Canadian border. The STB filing says St. Paul & Pacific Northwest is leasing 83 miles in the U.S. Freight moved on the line includes lumber, plywood, wood products, minerals, metals, fertilizer, industrial chemicals, and abrasives.
This is the second recent foray into the Pacific Northwest for Progressive, whose portfolio of short lines has been concentrated in the Midwest (although it operates the St. Paul & Pacific in California). Earlier this year it formed the Clackamas Valley Railway to take over operations of a 1.6-mile industrial spur connecting with the Union Pacific near Portland.
