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The Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad has officially requested to abandon ownership of the Coos Bay rail line, citing declining railroad traffic and the need for expensive tunnel repairs.

It filed paperwork with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board on Monday, requesting permission to abandon its line from near Vaughn to Cordes on the North Spit. It also wants to discontinue service on the 23 miles of track from Cordes to Coquille, which is owned by the Union Pacific railroad.

The line has been closed since September 2007, when CORP determined three tunnels posed too great a safety risk to continue operations. In its filing, CORP suggested the line wasn’t financially sound either.

In the year preceding the closure, CORP lost $1.3 million, the report said. Traffic on the line had declined by 11 percent since 2006, it said, and by 37 percent since 2003. The closure of Weyerhaeuser Corp.’s paper manufacturing facility on the North Spit in 2004 was a significant contributing factor, as it shipped out 3,000 carloads annually, CORP reported.

The other problem facing CORP is aging tunnels, which it estimates would cost $6.7 million to repair. The company attempted to repair one of the tunnels in November 2006, only to have it collapse, resulting in a temporary closure. The cost of the work increased as a result, going from an initial repair estimate of $400,000 to $1.7 million.