COOS BAY, Ore. — The Oregon legislature has approved $100 million in funding for the Port of Coos Bay project to develop a new ship-to-rail container terminal, the port announced this week.
The Pacific Coast Intermodal Port would see containers loaded directly from ships on to trains, which would then move via the port’s Coos Bay Rail Line to Eugene, Ore., where they would interchange with Union Pacific for delivery to Midwest destinations. The new facility, with a projected capacity of 2 million TEUs, or 20-foot-equivalent units, also involves dredging the Coos Bay Federal Navigation Channel to accommodate larger ships and extensive upgrades to the 134-mile Coos Bay Rail Line.
The project has previously received some $58 million in federal funding, including a $25 million Infrastructure for Rebuilding America, or INFRA, grant from the Department of Transportation [see “Coos Bay, Ore., port receives …,” Trains News Wire, Oct, 19, 2024]. The development of the new 175-acre terminal is a partnership between the Port of Coos Bay and Kansas City-based NorthPoint Development.
“This project is about building something real and lasting — not just for the region, but for the working people of Oregon,” Chad Meyer, CEO at NorthPoint Development, said in a press release. “It reflects the power of public-private collaboration, and we’re grateful for the confidence the Legislature has placed in us. Together, we’re bringing modern logistics capacity to the South Coast in a way that benefits the entire country.”
The intermodal port is projected to generate more than 2,600 construction jobs, 2,500 permanent direct jobs, and as many as 8,000 jobs total, while potentially generating more than $59 million in annual income tax revenue for the state.
I say turn the autonomous rail cars loose on the Coos Bay!!!!
There are several precedents for creating a container port where such did not exist before. Prince Rupert in Canada on so on throughout the world on each continent. At some point in the game of musical chairs, someone is left standing with nowhere to sit. There comes a time when the market has created as many container ports as are needed, and the next try fails.
Seems to me there’s too much political micromanaging here trying to make it happen. Dredge the channel, improve the railroad, emphasize local products to export, ban the products of fossil fuel processing. All this sounds too much like Zohran Mamdani’s proposals for one government-owned food store in each borough of New York City. Combine government mandates with government subsidies — it works until it doesn’t.
I keep thinking Massachusetts (my native state) where the General Court (the state legislature) has mandated electrification of the suburban commuter network. Is it a good idea? Depends on who you ask. Has it happened? No. Will it happen? I would bet against it. And so on in Oregon. Will this container port happen because the state legislature says so? We will see.
This is also in part that Portland will never get mega/super container ships because what it would take to get the navigation channel deep enough to complete with rest of West Coast ports whether it be Port of LA/Long Beach, Oakland to Seattle/Tacoma to Canada. So hail mary not from midfield but from behind the goal post at best.
On top of it, Long shoremen pretty much have West Coast Ports tied up so there is great labor savings. It is all about size of ships, ever greater automation and the direct rail connections. Which all exist at current West Coast container ports except Portland which lacks the mega ships.
If anything, Oregon messed up by not putting their container port near Astoria which had rail access/right of way and has a much better opportunity to develop deep draft capacity for mega ships at fraction of the cost and time it would take/make it happen to Portland. Now you get a bad decision on top of previous bad decision(s) when it comes to developing a competitive port
The main question is: Do we need another port? No, not for $550 million (the current cost estimate so far). Instead, upgrade existing ports that we know work and are efficient. If this is not possible, check ports such as Grays Harbor, Bellingham and Cherry Point in Washington State. This sounds to me like we “need” Coos Bay because Oregon doesn’t have a deepwater port, but that’s not a good enough reason. We “need” a deepwater port in Coos Bay like we need the Mississippi River and tributaries navigable from New Orleans to Morgantown, WV and Sioux City, IA.
To make the port of Coos Bay container-ship ready, 15 miles of the bay will need to be dredged. Then it’s 246 rail miles from Coos Bay to Portland before containers on trains head east on Union Pacific. Of these 246 miles, the first 122 is the current ex- SP branch from Eugene which will need major upgrades, including increasing clearances at 9 tunnels. The 124 miles from Eugene to Portland is UP’s main north-south railroad, which is still mainly single track, and would have major issues in Salem and south of Portland being expanded to two main tracks. So, even after an upgrade, it would likely take two crews to get the train from Coos Bay to Portland before it turned east. Contrast this to the current situation for container trains operated by UP from Seattle and Tacoma. They head south to Portland for 186 and 146 miles respectively on an entirely higher-speed main line with multiple main tracks (except for the Nelson Bennett tunnel), and requires but one crew. Trains from Seattle and Tacoma going east largely bypass Portland congestion on the Kenton line whereas a train from Coos Bay has to negotiate Brooklyn Yard and East Portland before grinding up the hill on the Graham line. BNSF trains from Seattle and Tacoma have even better options. For equipment and crew cycle time alone, Coos Bay is loser. And no, the defunct ex-SP Modoc Line wouldn’t help.
The other aspect that makes Coos Bay undesirable is the lack of nearby population (65,000). The ports of Seattle and Tacoma serve 12 million people in Washington and Oregon. This nearby population would likely not receive container shipments by rail, but the mere presence of population enhances the volume through the port. The port of Coos Bay touts their proposal as direct loading of containers to rail mostly because their highway access truly sucks. They don’t even have a direct highway east out of Coos Bay-North Bend and other highways are curvy and slow and two lane. Even the railroad at Coos Bay goes goes north 53 miles before turning east to Eugene.
Yes, Prince Rupert has no population either, but that port works because its that much closer to Asian ports and sits at the end of the railroad with the best operating profile through the mountain ranges of western North America.
May Leonard Nimoy return from the dead and apply his Vulcan logic, and move the funding to worthwhile, sustainable projects.
The Coos Bay project is designed to facilitate Oregon based exports. Lumber products, fruits, grain products, farm products like beef, pork, wines, beet sugar, etc.
Honestly, the best market to get into is premium soy exports to China, the demand is very large, right now INDR and CN have containers of premium soy that traverse from Indianapolis all the way to Prince Rupert.
I will have to check if some of the covenants in the funding agreement are still in place. No oil exports, no refined fuels, no LNG, no coal ash, or coal of any kind including metalurgical, no post refinery products like sulfuric acid, chlorine, or phosphurus or ammonia. These restrictions may or may not have been changed since I last looked. Basically anything made from fossils or if spilled would kill a tree or could be blown up.
In other words, they have banned legal products. Kind of like banning cigarettes. Tobacco is loathsome but it also happens to be legal.
“The Coos Bay project is designed to facilitate Oregon based exports.” The port’s website does mention exports of Oregon products, but the main focus is imports, and indeed the TRAINS article (above) specifically states, “The Pacific Coast Intermodal Port would see containers loaded directly from ships on to trains, which would then move via the port’s Coos Bay Rail Line to Eugene, Ore., where they would interchange with Union Pacific for delivery to Midwest destinations. ” It’s possible locally-produced commodities could be exported, but they’d be a drop in the bucket on a container ship. In other words, how many containers per train are being moved from Indiana to Prince Rupert? Already, trainloads of soybeans already are exported through the other Pacific Northwest ports.
Export oil arrives in Portland by rail, as well as into several ports in Washington State. The port at Clatskanie exports Ethanol.
Seems like a waste of money, both Mark and Alan hit the nail on the head.
The destination goal is the Midwest. There’s no railroad operating directly east from Eugene. Therefore, every shipment would have to operate all the way north to Portland before heading east. That’s a tremendous back haul compared to Seattle and Tacoma. The salient question is: why would anyone use this service?
Have to wonder how long it will take a regular freight and also IM trains to make the trip from Coos bay to Eugene. That time may be an impediment for priority IM freight since UP and BNSF essentially start IM from container ports just a couple of Rail hours from Eugene.
Will the crooked route allow for a full 10,000ft – 12,000 ft IM trains or will Coos bay RR have to split the trains?