Boise Light Rail: Fantasy or Reality?

Last Train To Boise

Our mayors have been saying for years that the time is right for rail transit in Boise. But is the historic "Boise cutoff" any closer to getting sticked back on?

The Boise cutoff was viewed as such an economic boon in the early 20th Century, the Boise Chamber of Commerce obtained all the necessary right of ways, raised $350,000 in fees and gave the property to the Oregon Short Line Railroad. Today, local businesses and leaders are struggling to find a way to get the rail corridor back.

"Hopefully the UP will take us today," says Jeff Anderson, resting his hand on the throttle of an idling Rio Grande freight locomotive. It’s just after 7 a.m., and we’re paused at the intersection where a small stretch of track run by the Idaho Northern and Pacific Railroad meets the multiple lane Union Pacific mainline railroad in downtown Nampa. Behind the engine in which we’re seated, 12 freight cars loaded with lumber sit idle while Anderson, the train’s engineer, waits to get permission to share the mainline track with far longer and more powerful trains.

We don’t have to wait long until he blows the locomotive’s whistle, the airbrakes hiss and the train rumbles forward. On other days, Anderson says, the Idaho Northern’s decades-old, 2,250 horsepower trains are often blocked for minutes or even hours by UP’s much larger customers.

"Out here, we’re just ‘Those guys," he says. And as for the train’s supposed power, "How many of those horses are still in there, I don’t know."

Surrounded by other quietly rumbling locomotives preparing to depart, we ride slowly southeast on the mainline for just over a mile before switching onto a single track curving sharply to the north. This line, known as the "Boise cutoff," runs some 44 miles from Nampa through Meridian and Boise before reconnecting with the UP mainline southeast of Boise at the ruined townsite of Orchard. The cutoff was once viewed as such a civic triumph, thousands of revelers packed the Boise Depot to celebrate its completion. At the time, they even called it the "Boise Mainline." Today, this locomotive is the only train that still makes the approximately 20-mile trip into Boise. It passes through Canyon County with so little fanfare, Anderson says he recognizes some of the individual crows along the route by sight.

BY NICHOLAS COLLIAS

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