Port of Vancouver celebrates completion of trench project

About the Port’s New Rail Entrance

• Cost: $30 million.

• Number of pilings: 415.

• Number of rail-track feet installed: 7,370.

• Length of trench: 1,350 linear feet.

• Cubic yards of concrete in trench: 6,900.

About the West Vancouver Freight Access Project

• Cost: $275 million.

• Expected to create 4,000 temporary construction jobs, and between 1,000 and 2,000 permanent, full-time jobs.

• Increases the port’s internal track miles from about 16 to more than 50.

• Expected to reduce congestion on the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific mainlines by as much as 40 percent.

• Allows full unit trains carrying a single product to be handled within the port.

The Port of Vancouver on Thursday shined a spotlight on the completion of a $30 million project — a new rail entrance to the port dubbed the “trench” — that’s part of a larger effort to relieve congestion and to speed products to markets.

Local government officials and federal and state lawmakers grabbed some of the spotlight, too. They were part of a sizable crowd, including media, that the port shuttled to a spot near Great Western Malting. That’s where tents, a lectern and tables bedecked in tablecloths provided a kind of elegant contrast to an otherwise gravelly and cacophonous industrial area.

At one point, a horn blast ripped into introductory remarks made by port CEO Todd Coleman. “The economy just got louder,” he said into a mic.

Thursday’s hullabaloo focused on the pile-supported, watertight trench. A new rail entrance to the port, the project allows trains carrying a variety of cargoes to move under the Columbia River Rail Bridge and to avoid conflicts with BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad mainlines.

The trench is part of the port’s overall $275 million West Vancouver Freight Access project, in the works for about 10 years. The port expects the freight-rail venture to reduce rail congestion by as much as 40 percent.

The entire freight-access project — which the port says it expects to deliver about $50 million under budget and ahead of its 2017 deadline — involves 21 separate pieces.

Those pieces include a new rail entrance to the port, an expanded rail corridor and a loop track at the port’s Terminal 5.

Those who spoke Thursday included Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Edmonds, representatives of Sen. Patty Murray, D-Seattle, and Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, and port commission President Nancy Baker. Coleman read a letter of support from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

The speakers said the trench and the overall freight-rail project marked critical investments in Southwest Washington’s infrastructure and economy. They touted everything from the creation of jobs and private capital investment to lowered shipping costs for Eastern Washington farmers.

For Cantwell, her visit to the port was the latest stop on a statewide tour intended to advance a national freight policy. The U.S. Senate recently passed a transportation bill, known as the DRIVE Act, which incorporated elements of legislation proposed by Cantwell. Those elements include new strategic freight planning and a program to fund freight transportation and port projects.

Cantwell said a recent federal study showed that $1.3 trillion in business sales will be lost by 2020 because of a lack of investments in the nation’s waterways and ports. She said the Port of Vancouver’s freight-rail improvements exemplify the kind of transportation investments the U.S. must make to effectively compete in a global economy that demands quick movement of goods.

Or, as Cantwell also put it during Thursday’s event: “Freight can’t wait.”