Date:  Monday, August 25, 2008

Contact: Mike Rowswell, State Rail and Marine Office, 360-705-7930

On August 18, lightning strikes ignited a major fire between Davenport and Creston. High winds drove the flames across the CW Branch of the Palouse River and Coulee City Rail System owned by the State of Washington. The fire burned a 48-foot long trestle to the ground. Numerous ties along a four-mile stretch of track also burned. As a result, the operator cannot reach shippers west of the trestle, including the major shipper on the line.

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) will fill in the area formally spanned by the trestle in order to support replacement rail. Crews started work Friday, August 22 and will finish today.

Eastern Washington Gateway Railway, which operates the CW Branch under a lease with WSDOT, is arranging immediate replacement of about 600 ties in the damaged four mile stretch of track affected by the fire. The ties are needed to stabilize the track sufficiently to allow trains to operate safely on a temporary basis. The company will reconstruct the rail on the fill placed by WSDOT’s contractor. That work is expected to be completed during the week of September 1. The company will also arrange replacement of about 1,600 additional fire damaged ties that will keep the line operational through the winter.

As damaging as the fire has been to the railroad, the fire has caused the loss of two homes and perhaps other structures as well. Livestock and wildlife have been lost, and many thousands of acres of land have burned.

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