The state has authorized SMART to take over North Bay freight hauling services as part of a larger plan to revamp the mostly degraded railroad that once served as an economic vein for much of Northern California.
The California Transportation Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to approve the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit district’s takeover of freight hauling from the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Co. between Napa and Windsor in Sonoma County. SMART would take ownership of 21 miles of rail from Healdsburg north to the Mendocino-Sonoma County border.
“This was a very important milestone,” said SMART General Manager Farhad Mansourian after the vote.
If the deal is ultimately approved at the federal level, it would be a significant addition — or a significant risk as some critics have argued — to one of the Bay Area’s youngest transit agencies. SMART began passenger service in August 2017 and runs trains between Larkspur and Santa Rosa with plans to extend north to Windsor. Last year, the state-funded a study to explore whether SMART could expand eastward along Highway 37 to Suisun City where it would connect with the Capitol Corridor passenger rail system running between the Silicon Valley and Sacramento.
Following the state’s approval on Thursday, SMART will have access to $4 million in previously appropriated state funds to buy four locomotives, other equipment and rail operation rights from Northwestern Pacific Railroad. However, there are several more layers of approval, including from the federal government, which must take place before SMART can take control of North Bay freight. These approvals may not be finalized until summer 2021, according to Mansourian.
“It’s a long, tedious, methodical process that we go through and requires lots of patience and agreements and negotiations,” Mansourian said.
In the meantime, SMART is preparing to hire a consultant to explore potential business opportunities along the freight corridor with a report possibly being released in spring 2021, Mansourian said.
Some residents have raised concern about SMART agreeing to take over the freight operations before it looked at what business potential was possible. Others argue it is a potential liability at a time when SMART has had to make significant service cuts in response to the coronavirus pandemic as well as a preexisting operational budget deficit. SMART estimates the freight rail line would require about $10 million in repairs in the coming years, only $2 million of which will be covered by the state as of now.
Should the takeover be finalized next year, the SMART Board of Directors will also need to decide whether the agency would operate freight itself or hire a private operator similar to Northwestern Pacific Railroad.
The freight acquisition is just part of the state’s plan to change course from its previous efforts to revitalize the more than 300-mile-long Northwestern Pacific Railroad running from Marin County to Humboldt County. A 2018 bill authored by state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, proposes to convert much of the degraded rail corridor into a massive new trail called the Great Redwood Trail.
Once having brought economic vitality to Northern California counties carrying lumber, food and passengers in the early 20th century, much of the railroad has fallen into significant disrepair. The cost to repair the rail through the Eel River canyon alone where unstable banks and erosion has smothered or warped much of the tracks was estimated to cost more than $1 billion.
The state Legislature created the North Coast Railroad Authority in 1989 to manage the railroad and attempt to restore freight and passenger service where possible. About $124 million was invested by the state between 1990 and 2011 in these attempts. The railroad authority partnered with the privately-owned Northwestern Pacific Railroad, which began freight hauling along 62 miles of track between Napa and Sonoma counties in 2011.
However, the authority has been mired in millions of dollars of debt and has been criticized for financial mismanagement, prompting McGuire to call for its elimination. Some in the authority had criticized the state for not providing enough financial support. McGuire’s bill will eventually dissolve the North Coast Railroad Authority and focus on constructing the trail.
A report released this month found 252 miles of the railroad would be suitable for converting into a trail, which would cost an estimated $750 million in 2020 dollars or about $1 billion in 2030 dollars to construct, according to Caltrans program manager Leishara Ward. In addition, removing all 250 miles of rail would come with an estimated $4 billion in environmental liabilities such as restoring wetlands and hazardous waste cleanup, she said.
Jason Liles, a senior adviser and former chief of staff for McGuire, said that $4 billion is a conservative estimate that would involve removing all the rail lines and ties. The current plan is to use a combination of both removing rail and building trails alongside the rail corridor, he said.
“That is definitely not the best practice for dealing with the environmental issues,” Liles said of removing the rail. “The environmental issues that exist are there right now and we will have a … master plan for the trail to actually clean them up and get it taken care of.”
Others such as David Schonbrunn, president of the Train Riders Association of California, called for a delay to call for greater studies into a potential tourism rail service around Humboldt Bay.
“We believe this is entirely premature and urge you to postpone this,” Schonbrunn told the commission about the trail report.
The California Transportation Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to “railbank” the rail line north of Willits in Mendocino County into Humboldt and Trinity counties to both preserve the tracks for potential future rail use as well as trail construction.
Earlier in the meeting, Commissioner Bob Alvarado asked staff to come back before the commission before any decision to remove any rails.
“We’re getting more and more problems with Highway 1 and 101,” he said, “and I just want to make sure that if we ever need it, and I know it’s going to be expensive, but somehow we retain the rights to put a rail line in there or repair the existing rail line to get freight into that northwest corner of the state.”
