Shippers CORP Response

This story was broadcast on KQEN Radio on 6-4-08:

An attorney representing shippers on the Coos Bay Rail Line tells the Surface Transportation Board safety issues do not appear to be the driving force behind the embargo of the line.
In a 19 page document provided to the STB yesterday, shippers’ attorney Ron Yokim explains that Rail America and CORP shut down the line between Eugene and Coquille last year simply due to economics. And that is not legal under the rail line’s common carrier obligation.
Citing reports dating back as far as 1994, Yokim lays out the case that CORP knew it had dangerous tunnels for years before the embargo, yet gave just one day of notice before closing the line on September 21, 2007.
Rail America attorneys told the STB as soon as they purchased CORP, they started a review of the line. Officials shut the line down as soon as their review showed that tunnels on the line were in danger of collapsing.
But Yokim’s report says Rail America was aware of the need for immediate repair well before the embargo and took no action to initiate repairs before or after the embargo.
The same company that reviewed the status of the tunnels on the line offered to prepare design, plans and specification documents for repairing the line if Rail America were to request them. Yokim says they did not.
He says if Rail America were planning on repairing the lines, they would have first requested the planning work be done, and then begin repairs. Rail America Vice President Paul Lundberg cited the wet spring of 2008 as delaying the repair work, making re-opening the line impossible until at least this November.
Yokim says “It is abundantly clear that Rail America elected not to initiate repairs during periods when it was possible to undertake tunnel repairs – an election which was based solely on economic concerns rather than any physical limitation that was outside the control of CORP.”
Yokim says this is a clear violation of the common carrier obligation of the line and points out that shippers have been damaged by the decision.
Roseburg Forest Products is dealing with over 200,000 dollars per month increased transportation costs; American Bridge is unable to process bridge repairs they were designed to make.
Yokim suggests the STB declare the embargo illegal and set a date for CORP to reopen the line.