Freight service in Marin comes closer to reality

By Mark Prado
Marin Independent Journal

Posted: 06/20/2011 04:28:43 PM PDT


Freight trains could roll through Novato by the end of the month after the North Coast Railroad Authority Board of Directors approved a pair of documents Monday at a meeting in Healdsburg.

All that is missing is an agreement with the city of Novato. The Novato City Council is expected to take up the issue at its June 28 meeting.

One City Council member said an agreement with Novato is not assured.

"We will have to look at it at the council," Councilwoman Carole Dillon-Knutson said. "We will need input from our attorney."

Among the issues the two agencies have discussed: welded track, which is quieter; a 25 mph speed limit; and a clean-burning locomotive.

"But all the pieces of the puzzle are there and they are beginning to fall into place," said Mitch Stogner, executive director of the North Coast Railroad Authority.

On Monday the board approved an operating agreement with the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit district on how it will share the tracks, including giving SMART priority during peak commute times.

The NCRA board also approved a final environmental impact report for its project.

There would be seven crossings in Novato. The delays at those crossings would be less than one minute, NCRA officials said. Trains would only run during daylight hours and likely make one round-trip on the line, three days a week, most likely on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The NCRA has invested more than $60


million since 2007 to repair 56 crossing signals, replace 50,000 cross ties and repair 43 rail bridges, among other steps. NCRA leases the track to a private short-haul rail operator, the NWP Co.

The trains would haul feed grains, wood products, building materials, wine and other general merchandise during the startup phase between Napa and Windsor. NCRA officials had talked of running the service as soon as this week, but said Monday they will now wait until an agreement with Novato is finalized.