Lease agreement issue Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rex Hill is mothballed(from Sherwood to Newberg), the line is in place. With the Mill in
> Newberg closed not sure how much traffic even comes out of McMinnville toward Newberg.

There's just one shipper in Sherwood, Northstar Chemical, that gets a few tankcars a week (they are located immediately east of the now replaced trestle, and served out of Tigard.)

There's just one shipper in Newberg that uses the team track and gets two boxcars a week. They get served by the Mac Switcher out of McMinnville.

In McMinnville, there's McMinnville Gas Company (propane), Cascade Steel Rolling Mills (inbound scrap metal and outbound steel rod, rebar, and fence posts), and what used to be Purina Land O' Lakes Feed but now goes by a different name. All of the ag shippers that used to be downtown are gone, the team track is now unusable. I'm not sure if RB Rubber Products still receives boxcars or not; Mission Foods doesn't, the company that used to receive plastic pellets to make nursery pots is long gone and another company that used to get an occasional boxcar no longer does; their spur was ripped out and P&W built a new spur there to park their locomotives away from homes downtown.

The entire Willamina Branch is down to just two customers, Hampton Lumber Sales in Willamina and McFarland-Cascade at Shipley (utility poles).

The Dallas Branch has no customers west of Highway 99W; there's a pair of grain elevators on the west side of 99W. All of the lumber mills and other businesses in Dallas are long gone. Forest River has been buying up a lot of facilities, such as the former Boise Cascade property in Independence, the former Willamette Industries and Caterpillar properties in Dallas, and a former mobile home plant in Sheridan - but they don't receive or ship anything by rail at any facility.

No idea how much is shipping out of the ag businesses at either Rickreall, Whiteson or McCoy; don't think very much out of Amity. There's another business on the south end of Independence with several spurs but the Google Earth imagery shows no rail traffic and a lot of other stuff parked on the tracks. Suver still has a siding. Marys River Lumber south of Lewisburg is long gone.

I wouldn't be surprised if when the new corporate owners of GWI start looking at assets to sell to pare down debt, the Westside Line and its associated branches go up for sale. The OE is doing pretty good, and the Toledo Branch still has a solid customer in Georgia-Pacific for now. The A-Line has the unit ethanol trains and various other local businesses. But beyond the Toledo Branch, most of the ex-SP branches are watching their traffic slowly fade away. On the Seghers Branch further north (west of Hillsboro) there's just one customer (Stimson Lumber) that is already cutting back shifts, and a proposal to enlarge Hagg Lake will force the sawmill to relocate or shut down altogether.