No longer is SMART just known as the Bay Area’s young commuter rail service in Marin and Sonoma counties. As of Monday, the agency is officially in the freight-hauling business.
The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit district took ownership of North Bay freight operations from the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Co. this week along with 21 miles of additional railroad spanning from the Sonoma-Mendocino County border to Healdsburg.
The U.S. Surface Transportation Board gave final approval to the transfers on Sunday. No challenges were filed by the deadline, according to SMART and the federal board.
Now that both the state and federal governments have signed off on the transfer, the SMART Board of Directors plans to meet on July 21 to discuss how the four-year-old passenger rail agency will run its new commercial enterprise.
“SMART will analyze two options regarding how SMART will continue to provide freight service – whether to contract with an outside contractor, or to utilize in-house resources to provide freight service to our customers,” SMART General Manager Farhad Mansourian wrote in an emailed statement. “The SMART Board of Directors will review this analysis within the next six months or so and then decide on the best path forward.”
In the interim, SMART is in discussions with Northwestern Pacific Railroad Co. to continue running the freight operations until it makes a decision, Mansourian said. Northwestern Pacific Railroad Co. served about five customers between Napa and Windsor and began freight operations in 2011.
SMART hired a contractor last year to study what additional business opportunities exist along the corridor.
The Northwestern Pacific Railroad Co. did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.
The SMART Board of Directors voted to pursue the takeover of freight hauling in May 2020. Board members said the additional service could generate revenue for the district, bring the fractured regional rail system under the control of a single agency and potentially allow for passenger rail service east to Suisun City and the Capitol Corridor rail system.
David Schonbrunn, president of the Train Riders Association of California, filed an objection with the federal government to SMART’s acquisition of the freight service, stating the agency still has not made its intentions clear for freight.
“We believed and continue to believe that SMART actually wants to shut down freight service,” Schonbrunn said on Monday. “If we are proven wrong, so be it. SMART currently has a consultant study that is looking at the market for rail freight services. We fully expect that that study is going to indicate that, no, there is no market and therefore we’re going to discontinue freight service.”
The association opposes any discontinuance of freight service because of its potential to replace truck-hauling, which Schonbrunn said results in significant greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the association states SMART has had difficulties financing its passenger rail service, let alone a new enterprise such as freight.
“It’s such a different mission and it’s such a different set of skills and attitudes that we argued that SMART simply isn’t up to the task,” Schonbrunn said.
The U.S. Surface Transportation Board disagreed with the association’s arguments, describing them as “unavailing” and lacking credible evidence to support such claims.
SMART bought the freight operations from Northwestern Pacific Railroad Co. using $4 million provided by the state last year. The agency also received about $2 million to begin addressing $10 million in deferred maintenance for the freight operations. The funds were included as part of Senate Bill 1029 authored by Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg.
Earlier this year, the California Transportation Commission allocated a nearly $1.5 million grant to cover close to $2.9 million in freight-related projects in Sonoma County. The grant was sourced from the 2006 transportation bond measure, Proposition 1B. These include repairs to the Black Point Bridge over the Petaluma River, rehabilitating two existing freight spurs at the Pruitt Industrial Park in Windsor and the Recology Sonoma Marin center in Santa Rosa, and adding one new freight spur to the Jackson Family Wines distribution center in Windsor.
The CTC requires a 50% private match for the grant, which SMART has not yet finalized, according to Joanne Parker, SMART grants manager.
These projects must begin construction by Dec. 31, 2022 and must be completed within three years.
One option being pursued is obtaining the matching funds from the businesses and entities that would benefit from these freight projects, including the new or improved spurs, said SMART spokesman Matt Stevens.
