Push to restore service off track

We were taken aback last week when we learned the Mat-Su Borough has decided to weigh in on the hotly debated idea of what to do with the train tracks running through Palmer.

Some in the city say the tracks should go. Some say they should stay. But few voices in this debate that has roiled the community for a couple of years have expressed much hope the tracks could be returned to service.

There are some people now, though, who say they think the tracks can be repaired and returned to service, and they apparently found a sympathetic ear at the Mat-Su Borough Assembly table last week.

The assembly has noted the tracks might go farther north than Palmer if necessary, and some have wondered if maybe they could be restored to one of their original uses - transporting coal from Sutton.

But we think that would be putting the coal cart before the horse, so to speak. Whether mining at Wishbone Hill is a good idea, we are firmly opposed to the idea of investing public money to recondition these tracks for the sole benefit of a private, for-profit company.

The borough is already engaged in an effort that will likely end up costing a quarter-billion dollars or more to connect Point MacKenzie to the railroad.

While we count ourselves Point MacKenzie rail supporters, we find it difficult to support the idea of spending public money to build the line back out to Sutton. We are convinced that shortening the route between the state's Interior and tidewater through the Point Mac extension will make the region's mineral wealth more economically viable, while also opening up borough land to additional development.

However, Sutton has much fewer resources awaiting development to recommend it. Coal, we assume, would be the only product transported along the route. We just don't think it is an appropriate use of public tax dollars to subsidize an industry.

And then there is the Mother Nature portion of this project. It seems counterintuitive on its face to plan to sandwich the railroad tracks between the mountains on one side and the Matanuska River on the other.

For years, nay even decades, the pages of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman have featured story after story of instances of houses falling into that river or chunks of the Glenn Highway disappearing into its maw.

This while we are also making plans to spend public money to move the highway away from the riverbank to escape its voracious appetite. That money is included in the governor's proposed capital budget for 2013.

That river changes course all the time. We'd be fools to ignore that fact, and we simply don't think it makes sense to try and shoehorn another very expensive piece of infrastructure in that eroding and unpredictable narrow corridor.

So what about restoring service to Palmer?

One critical piece of information lacking in the discussion is a cost estimate. There are a few figures floating through the community, but none seem like credible enough estimates to print here.

Maybe it makes economic sense to restore those tracks. Maybe it can shorten the distance coal trucks will have to drive if the coal can be loaded in Palmer or elsewhere. And boy, wouldn't it be nice to have a Christmas train to the Valley again?

But until we know how much public money is involved, we won't support the idea.