COOS BAY, Ore. — The Port of Coos Bay, Ore., is once again making a bid for a U.S. Department of Transportation Mega Grant, after its bid for an intermodal project was not selected a year ago.
The project seeks to create a new intermodal gateway capable of handling 1.2 million containers per year. Oregon Public Broadcasting station KLCC reports the port is seeking $800 million, which would help fund deepening and widening the Coos Bay Federal Navigational Channel and upgrades to the Coos Bay Rail Line. The third facet of the project, construction of a rail-served intermodal terminal, would be funded by the port’s private partner, NorthPoint Development.
Margaret Barber, the port’s director of external affairs and development, told KLCC that the port’s grant application was ranked 13th last year, with nine projects receiving funding. The resubmitted application is seeking less than last year’s application, which was for $1.2 billion. She also said the project is somewhat modeled after the Port of Prince Rupert, the British Columbia port that has become a major source of traffic for Canadian National, in that “all the traffic or nearly all of it is going to be going out by rail.”
The channel project would include deepening the waterway by 8 feet and widening it by 50 feet to allow the facility to handle Neopanamax ships, which are capable of carrying carrying containers with a capacity up to 13,000 20-foot-equivalent units, or TEUs. The rail project would involve increasing clearance on the nine tunnels of the 134-mile rail line — which connects with Union Pacific and two short lines in Eugene, Ore. — to handle double-stack containers. Infrastructure improvements would also include the addition of sidings to allow movements of six inbound and six outbound unit trains, and other bridge and track work to increase capacity.
The port said in a press release that the state of Oregon has already committed $60 million in funding, and that the project has bipartisan support from legislators throughout the U.S.
Strange request, considering both sides of the aisle want to restrict trade with foreign countries, and China’s economy is on the verge of a debt-induced collapse.
One possible point. As a brand new facility, they could install the most modern and automated equipment for container handling, giving a cost advantage over older ports.Might be enough to become viable.
Government spending of $ 800 million doesn’t have to make any economic sense it only has to make political sense. Unfortunately that’s why it might get funded.
This proposal is fantastically ridiculous. It might be modeled on Prince Rupert, but Prince Rupert has a railroad with the continent’s best operating profile to the U.S. Midwest and beyond. So, if billions are spent to get this railroad capable of handling unit stack trains and at a decent speed (but even the best-case scenario would likely be 5 hours just to get to Eugene), what happens at Eugene? Well, you can go south to California where they have their own superports, or north to Portland and then east. Since UP is the connection in Portland (unless something amazing happens with the Portland and Western), they would likely be the carrier east, and in addition to the extra mileage from Coos Bay to Portland, they get to haul everything over the Blue Mountains (in contrast to BNSF’s better profile).
For this money, let’s make Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland (and maybe other ports like Longview) more competitive with Vancouver and Prince Rupert. OR make the BNSF route from Spokane to Everett to Vancouver, BC more efficient so it could siphon some of the business away from CP and CN.
But as for a Mega Grant for a Mega Port, this is so not going to happen at Coos Bay. There’s just no reason it should.
How does this compare to Prince Rupert? PR is the closest rail-connected NA port to the orient. Coos Bay has even less advantage that Vancouver, Seattle, Tacoma, or Portland/Colombia River.
I think they meant that they were modeling the port after Prince Rupert, as they share some common characteristics.
Single rail carrier at a somewhat isolated port by mountains with not a large industrial or population base surrounding it. A port simply that transloads containers and nothing else.
This port is not needed hopefully they don’t get the grant. We already have an inefficient port system as it is let’s fix that first.
I don’t think the inefficiency comes from the “system”, it comes from onerous work rules at the ports, poor transfer of cargo from ships to rail, dependencies on draying (and the association of truck drivers and their trailers).
Being a minor port that only exports wood products today, if they do get a container worthy dock, I would surmise they would haul most of the loads to Eugene, where they would get drayed to companies throughout the pacific NW. The railroads would like it because it will take the “small fry” out of PDX, Kalama and SEA and they can focus on larger, more profitable transcon work.
Now does UP have capacity from Eugene? Mostly likely Eugene – PSX. There have been some Amtrak tweets that CS and Cascades have some freight train interference Eugene PDX. Cannot remember if the SE leg of the wye just east of Steel Bridge is still in place? That for going east on UP toward Ogden.
Then south from Eugene to Keddie ??. CORP cannot handle plate F much less double stacks south of Eugene.
The tunnels are the biggest issue. They are legacy tunnels using wood beams for support and are subject to arsonists periodically. If they are raised they will have to be set with concrete to stop the nonsense.
Also if NorthPoint were proposing a coal or oil (like Uintah) export terminal, this would have been privately funded in all of 2 seconds, but the greens would have made so much noise, and with our current Administration, would probably block it.