Re: WI&M
Author: Stan Patterson
Date: 12-18-2018 - 09:48
The WIM was always a tough piece of railroad to justify having. When we only had two real customers in the beginning. Bennett’s and Mcgregor Fert In Moscow. It was easy to justify keeping the WIM. Also for few years we didn’t pay watco anything for lease of the WIM. We held the WIM for another reason in the early years. It anchored us in a small way with WASDOT. Not saying it was a huge deal but was nice anytime putting the P&L up for bid came up they didn’t seem to want to deal with fact it was going to be a hastle because we would still be around on the WIM. But besides like six months when regulas transloaded at Bennett’s while the STMA fixed their bridge early in like 07. The WIM has never paid for itself. With storage cars it was a break even proposition. Sometime around 2010 we signed a long term lease with watco. It cost us $500 a month to watco and we had to pay property taxes. That came in around $500 a month. Weed spraying of 23 miles at $300 a mile annually. We had to fix the bridges out there. The section spent a good day a week in winter picking crossing especially in Palouse. The freight paid $575 a car from the mill. The mill lies 78 miles from Marshall. So at $7.40 cents a mile we made on center beams the WIM didn’t generate much $. Bennetts had in my mind always received preferential treatment as out only year around shipper. But for years they have staid steady at six cars a week. Plus a few more from Potlatch have not helped really at all in making the WIM a break even operation.