Tacoma Rail

Tacoma Rail , until 1998 Tacoma Municipal Belt Line Railway , ( AAR -reporting mark: TMBL, TRMW) is an American railroad company in the city of Tacoma in Washington State and the surrounding area. The company is owned by the city and is part of the Tacoma Public Utilities. Tacoma Rail has over a hundred employees and operates 18 locomotives of various types on a route network of around 328 kilometers.

history

Tacoma Rail originated from the Municipal Street Railway. The company began tram service to the city's industrial areas in 1889. In 1914 the company became a local public transport company and in the following years the route network was extensively expanded. In 1918, the company also began transporting goods between the port and customers in the city. In the 1920s, the name was changed to Tacoma Municipal Belt Line Railway. Passenger traffic ceased in 1948. In 1955 the company became part of the Tacoma Department of Public Utilities (now Tacoma Public Utilities). In 1998 the company took over the operation on the former route of the Tacoma Eastern Railroad to Morton and Chehalis . In the same year the name was changed to Tacoma Rail as part of a realignment of the municipal companies.

On November 16, 2004, the BNSF Railway took over the operation of some lines in the Olympia area (Washington) on a lease basis . In 2015, Tacoma Rail decided against an extension of the lease agreement, which expired on March 15, 2016, to operate the Olympia – Belmore and St. Clair – Lacey routes (“Quadlok Line”), as the volume required for economic operation was not achieved. Olympia & Belmore Railroad , a Genesee and Wyoming subsidiary , has been the new leaseholder of the Olympia – Belmore route since spring 2016 .

stretch

Tacoma Rail divides its routes into three divisions. The "Tidelands Division" is the original route area around the port of Tacoma.

The "Mountain Division" are the former routes of the Tacoma Eastern Railroad, founded on July 14, 1890, from Tacoma Junction (connection to the Union Pacific Railroad ) to Morton, branches to National and Ashford and the route to Chehalis. There is a transition to the Union Pacific and the BNSF. This railway company was taken over by Milwaukee Road in 1918 . When it ceased operations on the Pacific route in 1980, the forest company Weyerhaeuser bought the route and operated it from 1981 to 1992 through its subsidiary Chehalis Western Railroad . In 1990 a small part of the route was donated to the city of Tacoma. In 1995 Weyerhaueser sold the rest of the route to the city for $ 3.1 million. In the years 1992 to 1997 the line was operated by the Tacoma Eastern Railway . Tacoma Rail has been operating the 212-kilometer route itself since 1998. The route is best known for its 8.5-kilometer incline with a maximum incline of 3.6% to Hillsdale.

The “Capital Division” at times comprised three independent routes that are not connected to the rest of the network. These lines were leased from the BNSF in 2004. These are former routes of the Northern Pacific Railroad and the Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation . The "Belmore / East Olympia Line" runs from East Olympia on the BNSF route from Tacoma to Portland via Olympia to Belmore. The "Quadlok Line" also leads from the BNSF line to an industrial site at Quadlok (East Lacey). The 24-kilometer “Lakeview Line” runs from the BNSF route to Tacoma. With the expiry of the lease for the first two routes on March 15, 2016, the “Capital Division” will only include the “Lakeview Line”.

According to the AAR classification , operations on the Mountain Division are classified as local railroad operations, while the rest of the operations are counted as switching railroad operations.

Traction vehicles

Tacoma Rail today has a vehicle fleet of two EMD SW1200 , four EMD MP15AC , six GP20 modernized by NRE , as well as one EMD SD40 , EMD SD40-2 , EMD GP38 , EMD GP38-2 and two EMD GP40-2 . In autumn 2007, a GenSet locomotive 2GS-14B from National Railway Equipment went into trial operation . In the past, the company also used locomotives from ALCO . Especially the types S-1 and S-4 .

literature

Edward A. Lewis: American Shortline Railway Guide 5th Ed. Kalmbach Publishing Co., Waukesha, WI 1996, ISBN 0-89024-290-9
Blair Kooistra: Tacoma Hill, Slugs, and Mr. Clean. How Milwaukee Road tackles its steepest grade . In: Trains . 3/78, Kalmbach Publishing Co., pp. 35-39, ISSN 0041-0934 - report on the operation on the steep section in 1977
James W. Kerr: The Official Locomotive Roster & News Edition 2006 . DPA-LTA Enterprises Inc. St. David's, ON 2006, ISBN 0-919295-43-6

Web links

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Tacoma Rail to end short-line service to Thurston County. The News Tribune , Tacoma, January 8, 2016, accessed December 16, 2018 .
^ Olympia & Belmore Railroad, Inc.-Lease and Operation Exemption Including Interchange Commitment-BNSF Railway Company. Surface Transportation Board , Tacoma, February 26, 2016, accessed December 16, 2018 .

[newstribune2016-1] A ^b Tacoma Rail to end short-line service to Thurston County. The News Tribune , Tacoma, January 8, 2016, accessed December 16, 2018 .

[2] Olympia & Belmore Railroad, Inc.-Lease and Operation Exemption Including Interchange Commitment-BNSF Railway Company. Surface Transportation Board , Tacoma, February 26, 2016, accessed December 16, 2018 .