Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad
The Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad (PSAP, PS&P) is an American shortline railroad company in Washington State with a route network of around 250 km. The company, which is part of the Genesee and Wyoming group, is based in Elma (Washington) . The most important transport goods are wood and wood products.
Route network
The company operates the former BNSF route from Centralia via Oakville to Elma. There the route branches west to the port of Grays Harbor in Aberdeen and Hoquiam and north-east to Shelton and on to the US Navy bases Bangor Base (nuclear submarine base) and Bremerton (reserve of the Pacific Fleet). The latter route is owned by the US Navy from Shelton. From Centralia, the route network extends south to Chehalis and from there via the line owned by the Port of Chehalis to Curtis .
There are crossings to the BNSF in Centralia and the Union Pacific Railroad in Blakeslee Junction.
history
In the 1980s and early 1990s traffic to the ports of Aberdeen and Hoquiam began to decline. The main reason was the decline in timber transport from the Olympic Peninsula to the rest of the United States. After the Milwaukee Road had withdrawn from Washington in 1980, the Union Pacific set its own route to Aberdeen in 1985 and used the tracks of the Burlington Northern Railroad . In 1997, the BNSF, the successor to Burlington Northern, decided to cease operations due to the low transport volume. However, since this would have meant the end of the port, a solution was sought. This was found with the acquisition of the route by the shortline operator ParkSierra. The company, which already operated several routes in California and Arizona, acquired the Harbor and Bangor subdivision of the BNSF in August 1997 . In the period that followed, the new company began to seek new customers intensively. Especially in cooperation with the port, it was possible to acquire new transport services. It was thus possible to increase the annual transport volume by 2002 from the original 7,500 wagon loads in 1997 to 14,000 loads. The transport orders also occasionally include the removal of nuclear material from the submarine base in Bangor. In January 2002 ParkSierra was acquired by RailAmerica and has been part of Genesee and Wyoming since 2012.
Vehicle fleet
The operation was started with eight locomotives of the EMD GP10 and GP38 series. The older GP10s were later replaced by locomotives of the EMD GP40 and other GP38 series. In autumn 2005 the vehicle fleet comprised 15 locomotives. A special feature is the use of radio-controlled locomotives for shunting work.
Web links
swell
- Thomas Hillebrant: Somebody's gotta step up . In: Trains . 02/03, Kalmbach Publishing Co., pp. 64-69, ISSN 0041-0934
Individual evidence
- ↑ Overview , at www.gwrr.com , accessed on May 2, 2018