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Auditors: Tacoma Rail may never repay city loan
TR provides a critical community service, which left unfunded, would likely mean the eventually scraping of 150 or so miles of branchlines. In short, it is well worth the money being spent to preserve the various corridors. And if anyhthing, the Southern section between Fredrickson and Centralia should be rebuilt, making it more attractive to shippers to build along and/or tourist railroads to operate over.
The value of the line out of town to to suburban communities lies more with potential uses rather than what it currently provides (despite having a 3.8% grade leaving downtown). It could be used for commuter rail (DMUs anyone?) during the day and serve freight customers at night. The extremities run through some of the most beautiful scenery one could want. Indeed, both the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad and the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad operate tourist steam trains on (different) former sections of this line. Surely some arrangement can be made to preserve the line until the demand for service grows.
A government operated entity become profitable? What are they smoking?
Here’s a good example of why cities and government entities should not be involved in the banking business!