SNOHOMISH – The man who runs the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train still is trying to reach Snohomish County.
Eric Temple, owner of the train, said he now has a draft agreement with Burlington Northern Santa Fe to run the train from Woodinville to Snohomish for five years.
“As I understand it, the contract is in legal review at BNSF,” Temple said Wednesday. “I remain very confident that we will have a dinner train running between Woodinville and Snohomish in the next year.”
Railway spokesman Gus Melonas confirmed that negotiations are under way.
Under the proposed arrangement, Temple’s company would also take over running the few freight trains that serve 17 businesses on the line.
The agreement creates some confusion because King County reportedly is wrapping up a deal to buy the rail line and a rail advocacy group, All Aboard Washington, also is making a late play to snag the line out from under King County.
Temple said he has nothing to do with the rail advocacy group that over the past two weeks has begun challenging King County’s future control of the corridor.
King County officials have said they will honor a deal if one is reached between the Temple and the railroad, even if King County eventually buys the tracks.
The dinner train now runs from Renton to Woodinville. At the end of the month, that service must stop to make room for planned widening of I-405 in Bellevue, which involves removing one of the rail line’s bridges.
For the next 10 months, the dinner train heads south, where it will run from Tacoma to Lake Kapowsin near Mount Rainer National Park.
Temple said the company ultimately wants to establish three permanent routes: a version of the new Tacoma route, a route from Snohomish to Woodinville and a third line from Vancouver, Wash., to a town near Mount St. Helens National Monument.
Meanwhile, the railroad is not negotiating with All Aboard Washington.
“We are not entertaining offers regarding interest on the Woodinville line as we are discussing this with King County,” Melonas said.
The railroad’s negotiations with King County, which also involve the Port of Seattle, are nearly finished, said Kurt Triplett, chief of staff for King County Executive Ron Sims.
All Aboard Washington doesn’t like King County’s plans. It wants to immediately begin using the rail line to move commuters from Snohomish to Bellevue, said Craig Thorpe, a director with the nonprofit group.
King County plans to preserve the tracks from Snohomish to Woodinville, but wants to rip them up between Woodinville and Renton. A trail would be installed, and some form of mass transit system would be added later.
Triplett of King County said starting commuter rail service now won’t work because the line needs expensive improvements and there is no money available.
Thorpe and All Aboard Washington disagree. They say for a $30 million investment, commuter rail service could begin in just 90 days.
“The need is now, not in the future,” he said.
Snohomish City Councilman Larry Countryman agreed.
“Those tracks are usable the way they are and really are not in that bad of condition,” Countryman said. “It’s proven around the whole nation that, once the tracks are taken away, even though they have been banked (for future use as rail), that none of those have ever come back again.”
Start with small diesel trains that could use the tracks as they stand now, and then gradually expand as demand for the service grows, Thorpe said.
“No forward-thinking city or agency tears out a rail line,” Thorpe said. “We claim in Western Washington to be green and environmentally conscious. If we tear out this rail line, we prove that we are just the opposite.”
Snohomish Mayor Randy Hamlin said he was encouraged when he saw a drawing that shows what All Aboard Washington envisions as a train depot in his city. Its Victorian style would fit in well in the city’s historic downtown, he said.
“When you see something drawn like that, you start to see in reality how it could be an attractive attribute to the community,” Hamlin said. “A train depot fits.”
Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@heraldnet.com.
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