CWW LLC has filed with the Surface Transportation Board to operate on 55.56 miles of UP track in two segments, one running south from Walla Walla to Weston, Ore., the other running west from Walla Walla to Zangar Junction, near Wallula on the Columbia River.
The lease is currently held by Palouse River & Coulee City, a Watco Co. subsidiary. CWW, or Columbia — Walla Walla Railway, is part of Frontier Group, a short line and rail services company that lists its administrative offices as being in Portland, Ore. Most of its short lines are in the Northwest: the Kennewick Terminal Railroad, Oregon Railconnect, Yakima Central Railway and Rainier Rail. It also operates the Cincinnati East Terminal Railroad.
In 2017, CWW took over freight operations on a 37-mile segment of former UP line now owned by the Port of Columbia between Dayton, Wash., and Walla Walla that was also a former Watco operation.
Palouse River & Coulee City filed with the STB last December to discontinue freight service on the line.
“During the past three years, the volume of traffic moving on the leased lines has steadily declined,” that filing said. “As a consequence, PCC has come to the conclusion that it is no longer operationally or financially advantageous for PCC to continue to be the operator over the Rail Lines.”
Freight volume on the line, it added, declined from 1,228 carloads in 2016 to 894 carloads in 2017 and to 704 carloads during the first nine months of 2018.
CWW said in the most recent filing it anticipates starting service on or after April 8.
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