That will come too late to save a Georgia-Pacific lumber mill, the closing of which was announced earlier this month in part due to interruption of direct service. But the port says it’s working to bring a potential customer on once the bridge reopens.
The bridge has been stuck in the open position since mid-April 2018. When the mechanism failed, the bridge had to be pushed back so that marine traffic could pass. That, however, left rail customers south of the Coos Bay channel stranded. The port operates the line for another 17 miles south of Coos Bay to Coquille.
Port spokeswoman Fiona Bai said as much as $5 million will be spent to repair the 100-year-old bridge including installing jacking and shoring systems and installing an auxiliary drive motor to help turn the bridge.
With the bridge out-of-service, the port set up a transload facility less than a mile from the northern end of the span for the four rail-shipping customers cut off. Georgia-Pacific said the cost of trucking lumber to that facility, as well as timber supply problems, led to the decision to shut the mill.
The port’s latest prospect is a company that processes garnet as an abrasive for waterjet cutting and blasting.
Through March of this year, the port’s rail operations handled 1,624 carloads, down from 1,825 for the same period of 2018. For all of 2018 the rail line, which the port now manages directly rather than contracting with an outside operator, handled 6,428 cars, down from 7,173 in 2017 and 7,435 in 2016.
