RAINIER -- The Ol' Pastime Tavern has a blue-collar clientele, Teamsters stickers on the fridge and a sign reminding customers that "Loggers are an Endangered Species, too." A hotbed of green activism it's not.

But owner Sloan Nelson, also a Rainier city councilman, is as worried as any environmentalist about a coal export terminal planned at the Port Westward industrial park 15 miles northwest of town.

At full capacity, the

terminal could trigger 12 round-trip coal trains a day -- arriving full, returning empty. Each would be 1- to 1 1/2-miles long, running 10 mph on tracks past Nelson's bar and down the middle of A Street.

"I'm not going to stand up and say coal's going to kill the environment," says Nelson, 38. "But this is a small community of 1,800 people that is not flourishing. We can't afford to have 1,400 coal cars rattling through downtown every day."

Special report:

Coal clash

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Interactive map:

The race to export Montana and Wyoming coal through

to Asia could have a big payoff. Developers of six terminals pledge private port investments topping $2 billion if the projects reach full capacity.

That would generate $25 million a year in taxes, the developers estimate, and more than 900 permanent "family-wage" jobs, mostly union, plus construction work.

Coal business could also generate millions to upgrade rail lines, supporters say, with railroads and terminal developers chipping in millions to address stubborn bottlenecks.

But the prospect of more coal trains, each with up to 145 uncovered cars in a long black line, is generating anxiety along the tracks, including Seattle, the Columbia River Gorge, Portland, Vancouver and humble Rainier.

TRAFFIC CONCERNS



Here's the potential scale of the new traffic: In 2010, trains unloaded about 80 million tons of freight in Oregon and Washington. At full capacity, the six export projects would add more than 150 million tons of coal.

That tonnage would require 50 to 60 trains a day, counting return trips, with many likely funneling through the gorge. The lines on each side of the Columbia -- BNSF Railway to the north and Union Pacific on the south -- carried 40 trains or fewer a day in 2008, state reports indicate.

Railroad officials are big on coal trains. The trains, mainly from Powder River Basin mines in Montana and Wyoming, account for more than 40 percent of the rail tonnage nationwide.

They say not to worry.

A handful of coal trains already roll to coal-fired power plants in Boardman and Centralia, Wash., and to export terminals in British Columbia. Neither Oregon nor Washington exports coal now. But new terminals would come on line slowly over years, rail officials say -- only three have even applied for permits yet.

"Capacity is not going to be an issue," BNSF spokeswoman Suann Lundsberg says. "We're going to make the improvements as we need them because we want the business."

Yet concerns about crowding aren't hard to find.

A 2007 national freight rail study put the gorge, Portland-Vancouver and Puget Sound in the top 3 percent of congested lines. Delays in Portland-Vancouver already are greater than the Chicago area, one of the nation's most congested, Washington's 2009 rail plan said.

Growth in high-volume, longer trains is "squeezing out" industrial and low-density agricultural traffic, the report said, with coming decades expected to put many more lines above practical capacity. Railroads say they're already pouring millions into upgrades. BNSF says it will spend $106 million in Washington this year to enhance service for existing customers.

Gov. John Kitzhaber has called on the federal governmen

t to evaluate the cumulative effects of the terminals, including potential rail congestion. To date, developers have focused on single projects, not the whole picture.

Coal train money could end up giving the Northwest a premier rail system, said Terry Whiteside, a rail consultant diving into coal export issues for the Western Organization of Resource Councils. Or it could generate avoidable headaches.

"The railroads don't want to talk about the impacts, they want to minimize them," Whiteside says. "But I think it's important that we get the conversation started."

RAILROADS AND MONEY



The ports have some high hopes.

The Port of Coos Bay owns its own 133-mile line. It wants a potential coal terminal developer -- the port won't disclose who -- to cover the $140 million to $180 million needed for the line to handle "unit trains," long trains that carry only one commodity.

View full size

NW coal exports

Tons in U.S. short tons, not metric. Trains/day includes both delivery and return trips at full capacity.

MORROW PACIFIC PROJECT

OWNER:

Australia's Ambre Energy, part owner of a mine in Wyoming and a mine in Montana

LOCATIONS:

Port of Morrow in Boardman; Port of St. Helens' Port Westward site

ANNUAL TONS:

3.9 million initially; up to 8.8 million

DESCRIPTION :

Load from trains to Columbia River barges in Boardman, then to export ships at Port Westward

INVESTMENT

$242 million

PERMANENT JOBS :

50

ANNUAL TAXES

$4.1 million combined to Columbia/Morrow counties at full build-out

OTHER BENEFITS:

$800,000/year each to two counties' schools. $70 million to Portland's Vigor Industrial and Gunderson to build 20 covered barges

TRAINS/DAY:

Up to four

STATUS: T

wo ports approved; seeking Army Corps permit. First stage, mid-2013. Full build-out, 2016



KINDER MORGAN TERMINAL



OWNER:

Kinder Morgan

LOCATION:

Port Westward

ANNUAL TONS:

15 million initially: up to 30 million

INVESTMENT:

$150 million-$200 million

PERMANENT JOBS :

80

ANNUAL TAXES:

$3.7 million

TRAINS/DAY:

Up to 12

STATUS:

Port approved lease option. May apply for permits by year's end

MILLENNIUM BULK TERMINAL

OWNERS:

Ambre Energy; Arch Coal



LOCATION:

Former Reynolds site in Longview, Wash.

ANNUAL TONS:

27.6 million initially; up to 48.5 million

INVESTMENT:

$646 million

PERMANENT JOBS

: 135

ANNUAL TAXES:

$5.4 million

OTHER BENEFITS:

Cleanup of heavily polluted smelter site

TRAINS/DAYS

Up to 16

Status: Applying for permits. Hope to export full amount by 2018

GATEWAY PARK TERMINAL

DEVELOPER:

SSA Marine; Peabody Energy

LOCATION:

Near Bellingham, Wash.

Annual tons: 52.9 million

INVESTMENT:

$600 million-$700 million

PERMANENT JOBS:

430

ANNUAL TAXES:

$11.2 million

TRAINS/DAY:

Up to 18

STATUS:

Applying for permits, then two years to build



COOS BAY TERMINAL

DEVELOPER:

Unknown. Port calls it "Project Mainstay"

LOCATION:

Port of Coos Bay

Annual tons: 3.3 million initially; up to 11 million

INVESTMENTS:

$250 million

Permanent jobs: 165, including port-owned railroad

TAXES:

Unknown

TRAILS/DAY

: 4

STATUS:

Evaluation stage. Open by 2017 at earliest

GRAYS HARBOR TERMINAL

DEVELOPER:

RailAmerica

LOCATION:

Port of Grays Harbor, Hoquiam

ANNUAL TONS

: 5.5 million

INVESTMENT:

$100 million

PERMANENT JOBS:

60

ANNUAL TAXES:

$1 million

TRAINS/DAY

2

STATUS:

Evaluation stage

Sources: Developers, ports

In Longview, planners want $200 million to relieve rail and road tie-ups near Longview's Lewis & Clark Bridge over the Columbia. That planning includes BNSF, Union Pacific and Millennium Bulk Terminals, whose project would bring up to 16 coal trains a day through town.

The council will pursue federal and state grants, said Rosemary Siipola, transportation manager for the local council of governments. But Siipola expects the railroads and terminal to pony up, too, along with other industries on the waterfront.

As a rule, railroads aren't eager to chip in for local improvements, Siipolasays, because "they don't have to."

"In instances like this, where they need it to fulfill the needs of shippers," she says, "it's a different ballgame."

Gary Lindstrom is skeptical. He's a maritime transportation consultant who directed marketing at the Port of Longview from 1991 to 2008.

Taxpayers are likely to take the lion's share of the tab, and timing is tricky, he says: Terminal operators anxious to get started may move forward with or without improvements.

"These trains are a real challenge to infrastructure," he says, "and to people's daily lives."

A SLOW GO



The track to Rainier's not a bad example of that.

To get to Kinder Morgan's terminal, coal trains would likely run down Washington's side of the gorge. Camas, the Port of Skamania County and Washougal, with five street-level crossings, have raised concerns. So have Mosier and Hood River on the Oregon side.

The trains would travel across the Columbia rail bridge, cut through a canyon in Portland to the Willamette River bridge, then head

on Portland & Western's one-track line, carving through Northwest Portland's Linnton neighborhood, Scappoose, St. Helens and Columbia City.

Thirty-seven of the 40 public crossings are street-level. Two high schools are near the tracks, with housing, senior centers, stores and emergency services scattered on either side.

At 25 mph, a 1- to 1 1/2-mile train takes two to four minutes to pass a crossing. At 10 mph, the speed through congested areas, that bumps to six to nine minutes. With 12 trains, that's as little 24 minutes of total daily delay, up to nearly two hours. The trains also have to honk -- two long pulses, a short and a long -- at each street level crossing.

In 2009, before coal trains were in the mix, a U.S. 30 safety study warned that crossing delays could back up cars onto the highway. Increased rail use, the study said, "means severing communities from business, residential, school, and emergency and law enforcement access, at unpredictable and potentially extended periods."

'WE HAVE TO EVOLVE'



Like his colleagues at the larger lines, Portland & Western President James Irvin says money from coal can help relieve problems, while providing more business for his underutilized railroad.

Among the fixes: New, longer sidings that divert coal trains so trains serving existing industries can squeeze by. Extended turn lanes on U.S. 30 to hold cars backed up at crossings. Train dispatchers tied into local 9-1-1 operators. Quiet, no-horn zones, like one in Columbia City. Better signals at crossings.

"The frequency of the trains is a tremendous change," Irvin says. "But there are hundreds and hundreds of unit trains that roll across this country day in and day out, and it's done safely."

Dan Coffman, president of the longshore workers local in Longview, thinks the port jobs are worth some inconvenience. Kinder Morgan hasn't applied for permits yet, but it says the terminal could mean 80 permanent jobs and 150 construction jobs.

Coffman grew up in Rainier. He remembers trains stopping in downtown 50 years ago and riders hopping off to eat and shop.

"The town was actually built to accommodate the rail," he says. "All of a sudden they don't like what the rail brings. We have to evolve and change with the times."

Solutions for Rainier, which gets one or two trains a day now, could be tough. Between the river and hills, there's no way to relocate tracks. An earlier proposal to build a raised, fenced-in railway down the middle of the street and close some intersections fell flat. It would have looked "hideous," says Nelson, the bar owner and councilman.

Duncan MacKenzie, a coal export opponent and industrial designer who lives in Rainier, says the area's history shows it can be risky to hang jobs on energy. The Trojan nuclear power plant was shuttered in 1993. An ethanol plant at Port Westward stopped producing in 2009.

"It would be nice to have the jobs," MacKenzie says, "but I think it's somewhat illusory."

Rainier Mayor Jerry Cole grew up in Goble, about two miles from Trojan. But he says he's "cautiously optimistic" about coal. A terminal means jobs and county taxes, he says, and could be the city's best shot to win meaningful rail upgrades.

But Cole, a lieutenant with Columbia River Fire and Rescue, has concerns, too, including a senior center in Rainier on the wrong side of the tracks. He pulls out his cell phone to show photos of his ambulance waiting three minutes at a crossing in St. Helens while a relatively short log train cruises by.

"Imagine that being a mile-and-a-quarter coal train."