Petition seeks Palmer railroad restoration

PALMER — The next time Palmer City Manager Doug Griffin heads to Juneau, he’s likely going to bring with him a pile of signatures on a petition asking that the railroad tracks through Palmer be returned to service.

Denise Statz, owner of Non-Essentials, has had the petition in her shop. She said she believes the railroad tracks are a great economic opportunity and about a mile’s worth was removed three years ago.

She compared it to a runway or a dock. What kind of outcry would there be, she asked, if officials waltzed into a community and just started tearing up a runway because it was too expensive to operate?

“We let them do the same thing to us, but we let it go without any consequences,” she said of the tracks.

Statz said she believes that having trains come to Palmer again could bring people to Palmer events, which she knows are popular with people outside the city as she’s met them there.

“Anyone who can’t see the economic benefit of that is not really looking,” she said. “Stop to think about what’s possible with the railroad and what’s not possible without it.”

Even when the tracks were removed, though, they weren’t in service and hadn’t been for a long time.

“The rail bed has been spongy there has been concern about it there has been talk about the repair necessary,” she said.

A lot of this came out when the city was talking about ripping up the tracks as part of its plan to build kind of a greenbelt running through town. Statz was active in that fight and has been active since.

The city of Palmer and Mat-Su Borough have both passed resolutions in support of returning the tracks to service.

“We probably don’t even need to have a petition,” Statz said. “It’s No. 5 on the legislative priority list of the city of Palmer.”

That is, funding to put the tracks back into service is on the list of things Palmer is asking for from the Legislature this year. Statz spoke Saturday at a meeting of those legislators.

“I hope that the funds can be set aside to restore that wonderful economic opportunity to us,” she said.

Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Butte, said that he believed the city didn’t get a good reception from the railroad at first, but that has improved.

“They’re not real receptive to legislative involvement,” he said of the state-owned corporation that runs the railroad.

Sen. Mike Dunleavy, R-Mat-Su, said that he believes the railroad also had some problems to address in Talkeetna where a railroad bridge is probably exacerbating flooding issues.

Rep. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, thanked Statz for bringing the issue forward.

“It is very important to us,” Hughes said. “I see exactly what you’re saying and we are working on it.”

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.