“Tracks out of service.” The signs grace all of the railroad crossings throughout downtown Chaska, and they’re not about to change. Chaska’s downtown rail line has run its course.

“The state’s approved it and it’s basically being finalized,” said Ray Smith, facilities and quality systems director with United Sugars.

On March 31, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) granted Union Pacific’s request to abandon five and a half miles of track in Carver and Scott counties.

The counties, as well as the cities of Chaska and Carver are now working through the finalization process including decisions about what will happen with the railroad’s right-of-way.

Meanwhile, those served by the tracks, like United Sugars, are looking for alternatives to life without the railroad.

Collapse

Last winter, Union Pacific filed paperwork to abandon the section of rail between the Renaissance Festival grounds and United Sugars in Chaska following a trestle collapse in March 2007. The collapse occurred just upstream of downtown Carver, sending several railcars full of sugar into the Minnesota River.

The railroad then faced a bill of up to $8 million to fix the bridges and tracks on the line. But according to the STB’s decision document, Union Pacific argued that “freight revenues were insufficient to justify costs of rehabilitation or reconstruction.”

Union Pacific stated that it was hauling between 600 and 800 carloads in each of the last few years. In the year before the collapse, the railroad had carried 764 carloads at a profit of $23,823. According to the railroad, there were no prospects for increased traffic or revenues on the line.

The railroad’s sole customer at the time, United Sugars in Chaska, filed a protest to keep the line in service, but was unsuccessful despite complaints of the increased cost of alternate transport.

Since the collapse, United Sugars has been receiving bulk sugar at its Chaska plant via truck. According to their numbers provided in their protest, it has taken 3,001 truck shipments and 345,515 gallons of fuel to “move the same volume of sugar by truck as they did by rail in 2006.”

The decision document states that the result is an extra $1.6 million in added costs for United Sugars. According to Smith, those increased costs will play a part in the future of the sugar factory.

“We definitely have to consider that this costs us more,” said Smith. “We need to continue to think about the business.”

At one time, the city of Chaska had proposed that sugar be transported via the Twin Cities and Western tracks in northern Chaska and then carried via truck to the sugar factory. Smith said that proposal would have cost the company more than trucking alone.

“There hasn’t been any other proposal to consider that would be cost-effective,” he added.

Interim City Administrator Matt Podhradsky said that the city would prefer to keep United Sugars in town and in business. “If they’re not there, how is (the building) reused?” he asked.

Log jams

United Sugars isn’t the only entity affected by the loss of the railroad. Each spring, the city of Carver depended on the railroad to clear log jams from the Minnesota River. No railroad means the city is without the ability to clear the logs stacked in the river near the bridge.

“The city can’t do anything,” said City Administrator Jim Elmquist. “There’s no capital, no funds.”

Elmquist said they are still investigating the possibilities to alleviate log jams as they continue through the abandonment process. “It may be part of the final agreement,” he said.

Opportunities

Not everyone is upset about the loss of the railroad, however. The abandonment of the line will create opportunities for redevelopment and recreation.

The Carver County Regional Railroad Authority has requested to use the rail line for a trail, while the city of Chaska has been looking at the redevelopment possibilities where the rail ran through the downtown.

“There will be some rails to trails development and some outright sale of the land,” said Podhradsky.

Local governments are also working on an agreement that would keep the line available for future rail use if need be (similar to the Southwest Regional LRT trails operated by Three Rivers Park District.) They have six months from the abandonment decision to negotiate with the railroad.

-Mollee Francisco, staff writer

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