Meeker Southern Railroad summary
The Meeker Southern Railroad (MSN) is a Class III short line railroad that operates in the Tacoma, Washington area. It’s a subsidiary to the Seattle-based Ballard Terminal Railroad. Less than 5 miles of the former Northern Pacific Railway’s standard-gauge track is used in the Meeker-McMillin area, just south of Tacoma.
History
The Meeker Southern was once part of the right-of-way of the original ex-NP main line into Tacoma through Stampede Pass. Since its construction in 1877, the line carried mainline transcontinental freight and passenger trains until the completion of the Auburn-Kanaskat cutoff. The line has since been spun off into an independent branch line owned by the Ballard Terminal Railroad that today operates it as the Meeker Southern Railroad.
Operations
Customers along the Meeker Southern are located at each end of the line. At Meeker, the railroad works with Sound Delivery to bring steel, I-beams and construction materials inbound, while outbound commodities are scrap metal from Pearson Metals and glass from Pacific Glass Media. Steel rebar for construction materials is also shipped to the Optimus Transload Meeker site. McMillin at the other end is home to Commencement Bay Corrugated that receives paper and wax for the manufacturing of wax-permeated boxes. The infrastructure on the short line is a mixture of 72, 80, 90, and 100-pound rail.
The MSN uses two EMD SW9 diesel locomotives from the ex-Eastside Freight Railroad to handle both switching and freight hauling. Former Weyerhaeuser No. 103 is the primary motive power while former Missouri Pacific No. 109 serves as the backup. The railroad also owns a former Burlington Northern wide-vision caboose as a switching platform. With the lack of a turnaround track along the line, it assists in the movement of freight cars on all trailing point spurs.
The Meeker Southern interchanges with the BNSF Railway at Meeker on the east side of Puyallup.
Read more about the Meeker Southern Railroad in Trains’ December 2021 issue.
