Today’s TRAINSNewswire carries a story that the STB has approved the application to build the 35 mile long extention to the Port of MacKenzie from a point on its line near Willow. On the Alaska RR main line.
FTA: "…The new line will provide rail service between Port Mackenzie and Alaska’s interior, and support the port’s development as an intermodal and bulk-material resources export-import terminal. Currently, truck is the only mode of surface freight transportation available in the area to serve the port.
The STB authorization is subject to extensive environmental conditions, and stipulates that ARR builds the line on the route the STB designated as environmentally preferable…"
This linked page( ARR website) lists the Project as " The Port MacKenzie Rail Extention" along with a list of Project Target studies. :http://alaskarailroad.com/CapitalProjects/MatSuProjects/tabid/486/Default.aspx
The First major document is an 83 page PDF that is the “Mat-Su Borough Rail Corridor Study” from June of 2003. And apparently this Extention had been on the horizon since the 1980s and 1990’s as a proposal.
The Memorandum of Agreement to go ahead with the Proposal was signed in June of 2007.
The final EIS Document comprises some 24 Main Sections and Apendices A thruR (R) (Link below)
http://www.stb.dot.gov/decisions/readingroom.nsf/fc695db5bc7ebe2c852572b80040c45f/16624fd94f614f548525785c006b8bfd?OpenDocument
So from conception through approval was on the order of 30 to 35 years (give or take), and that was just wading through the paperwork to get permission to build 35 miles of
someone who has the time can maybe wade thru the report to get a map or written description of the STB approved route. Various media reports have the connection to the main line at Wasilla, Pittman, or near Houston .
EDIT – And there is the train’s report of near Willow ?? So who is correct ?? 35 miles seems too short to make Willow ??
Blue Streak 1:
You are correct about the miles to Willow being too short to fit the scenario of 35 miles. It is more like 46 miles. So the Houston would come in about the 35 mile range.
There are maps within the linked PDF of the routes ( original count was 11 routes submitted, and it appears that there are now two chosen #3 and #7 )
One route is to be a road acess only; while the longer route is to be a Corridor of some 800 ’ in width, (to encompass road and rail and utilities).
My whole point in posting the links, was that as individuals normally on the outside looking in on these projects we tend not to see all the stages a project like this takes to accomplish. The professional engineers who come here are well aware of what a project like this takes to move through to completion. as are the people involved in various railroad engineering projects.
The whole ARR area of operations have a level of interest that is a product of their terrain, weather,as well as isolation from the rest of the U.S. States. Not to mention the fact they are under various State and Federal rules of all sorts… A complicated environment to try and function as a railroad and a business.