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| Railway will see rehab |
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| ‘Every cent’ of $1.034 million grant will be used |
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By Kevin Gaboury
The City of Prineville Railway is set to see some major rehabilitation over the next six months.
According to Railroad Manager Dan Lovelady, the railway received $1.034 million in federal stimulus dollars for the rehabilitation project, which includes replacing ties and switches and improving crossings on nearly all 18 miles of track.
At Tuesday's Prineville City Council meeting, the council awarded a bid to HS Construction of Roseburg Ore., to complete the job for $782,548. No local contractors applied for the project. Lovelady said the city was able to deduct the cost of materials that will be re-used or purchased at a lower price, and this is why the final bid amount came back lower.
"Every cent of the grant will be used," he said.
The work will begin after July 4 and is expected to be complete by the end of the year.
The first phase of the project will involve removing all track from 10th Street to the old Ochoco Mill site on Combs Flat Road. Lovelady said this has been planned for a number of years to make way for a future extension of Ninth Street.
The larger rail from this section of track will be used to replace a 6/10-mile section of the railway's mainline - which stretches from Prineville to Redmond - and the smaller-sized rail taken from the mainline will be used for track at the freight depot.
This process will eliminate six road crossings throughout town - Combs Flat Road, Highway 126 near Apple Peddler, Juniper Street, Court Street and Elm Street.
In the next phase of the project, the railway will put in 7,200 new cross ties to replace worn ones in the mainline section.
"There are a lot of nearly new ties in this track that we're taking up, so we're going to re-use as many of those as we can and then we'll purchase the remainder of new ties," Lovelady said. The railway has an average of about 400 cross ties per mile.
The railway will also dump a yet-to-be-determined amount of ballast rock along all 18 miles of the mainline, which will be tamped down under the ties for a smooth surface.
"While they're doing that, they align the curves and straight-aways so they're all nice and straight or a nice, smooth curve," Lovelady said.
The second phase will involve replacement of 390 switch ties at 10 switches along the railway. Switch ties are located where one track diverges into two and can be as long as 18 feet.
The final phase will see the replacement of six aging railroad crossings with new concrete crossings. These will be located at Main Street, Bus Evans Lane, Elliot Lane, Lone Pine Road, and two along O'Neil Highway.
Lovelady feels the improvements will help preserve the railroad for the next 20 years, and hopefully attract some new business to the freight depot once the economy recovers.
"It'll allow us to continue to keep our expenses down without having to buy new materials to rehabilitate our track," he said. "We've got a lot of interest in the freight depot and as the economy starts to recover, we expect great things at the depot. We want to have the railroad in shape to be able to handle that new traffic." |
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