JUNEAU, Alaska — Little more than a week after criticizing the Alaska Railroad because it has “not built one single mile of track” in more than 40 years of state ownership, a state legislator has proposed giving the railroad a way to do just that.
An amendment introduced by Rep. Kevin McCabe (R-Big Lake) would allow the Alaska Railroad Corp. to issue $58 million in revenue bonds to finance a 32-mile spur to reach Port MacKenzie, a deepwater port near Anchorage currently accessible only by road, reports the Mat-Su Frontiersman of Wasilla, Alaska. The amended version of HB122, introduced to allow the Alaska Railroad Corp. to issue bonds for a cruise ship dock in Seward, also would allow the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority to finance up to $300 million for infrastructure to support mining.
McCabe’s criticism of the railroad — and an accompanying statement that rail access to the port was essential — came in a March 21 Transportation Committee meeting on a bill proposing that the state sell the railroad [see “Bill seeks privatization of Alaska Railroad,” Trains News Wire, March 25, 2024]. The Frontiersman reports that McCabe’s amendment caught other legislators by surprise, including the original sponsor of HB 122, Rep. Frank Thomaszewski (R-Fairbanks), who said he would seek to remove the mining language when the bill reaches the House Finance Committee.
Plans for the Port MacKenzie spur have been laid out for more than a decade, as outlined here, and portions of the right-of-way have been graded. A 2020 Alaska Railroad document estimated the total cost of the spur at $314 million.
