DOT Awards $200M Rail Grant to Support Port of Coos Bay's Terminal Project

The Port of Coos Bay, Oregon has received a federal Department of Transportation grant for $205 million to upgrade the Coos Bay Rail Line, the short-line railway that links the small port to Class I rail services on the other side of Oregon's Coast Range. The grant was funded through DOT's Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) program, and had support from Oregon's congressional delegation. Once completed, it will support the port's plans to build out a $2.3 billion container terminal with intermodal rail connections - the only saltwater facility of its kind between the Bay Area and Seattle.

"The grant will bring us closer to the Port of Coos Bay becoming the first fully ship-to-rail port facility on the West Coast—a watershed moment for the region and our state,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR). “The Port of Coos Bay project stands to create economic opportunities for working families by creating good-paying, local union jobs, and together, we’ll get this project over the finish line.”

The funding augments an $11 million Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) grant from DOT that was awarded for other work on the rail line earlier this year. The department's officials have recently emphasized the possibility of combining PIDP, CRISI and other funding streams to underwrite larger projects like Coos Bay's boxship terminal (in addition to incremental upgrades and repairs).

If built, the proposed Pacific Coast Intermodal Port would be able to handle Neopanamax boxships up to 13,000 TEU in size. Sponsor NorthPoint says that the demand from large retail customers would support buildout of a pure container-to-rail box terminal for shipping to inland consumers. This would require about eight feet of vertical dredging (from 37 feet to 45 feet) and 150 feet of channel widening from the harbor entrance up to eight miles inland from the bar.

The port would be positioned as an alternative to Prince Rupert, Vancouver, Seattle, Oakland or LA/Long Beach. It would also provide competition for Port of Portland's Terminal 6, Oregon's only existing container terminal. T6 (recently rebranded Oregon Container Terminal, or OCT) supports one weekly transpacific service provided by SM Line.