Western Rail Inc., of Spokane, has bought 23 acres of land in Airway Heights on the north side of McFarlane Road just west of Hayford Road and will move its locomotive sales, leasing, and parts business there.


The 19-year-old company, which has its offices at 8225 W. Trails Road and has an inventory of locomotive parts in rented storage facilities around the country, has ordered an 800-square-foot modular building for its new offices on the West Plains, says Todd Havens, Western Rails president and one of its owners.


Within the next six months, the company will erect a 5,000-square-foot warehouse on the property to provide dry storage for some of the locomotive parts it sells, although some parts can be left outside, Havens says.


Our main business is selling locomotives, Havens says. Still, the company parts out about one in four of the used locomotives it buys. After it builds a shop at the Airway Heights location, which it expects to do in the next two to three years, it will do light repair on locomotives and dismantle some locomotives there, he says.


Currently, Western Rail has locomotives parted out at various locations around the country by crews that work under contract, and it usually warehouses parts at those locations until they sell. The Airway Heights location will allow it centralize most of that activity there.


We have literally parts all over the country that well be centralizing, Havens says. He says Western Rail probably has $2 million to $3 million worth of inventory waiting to be sold.


The company, which either had leased out or was dismantling about 18 locomotives last week, also offers rebuilding of locomotives under contract by the Usk, Wash., locomotive shop of the Pend Oreille Valley Railroad. Western Rail mostly serves the short-line and industrial-railroad markets, which, respectively, typically serve local areas or industrial sites, Havens says.


The shop Western Rail will build at its Airway Heights site will be locomotive capablea roof structure with a gantry crane over it that runs on rails, Havens says.


The company, which has just four of its own employees now, likely will add five to 10 employees in the next couple of years because of its move and could create more jobs than that eventually depending on how things go, Havens says.


The Spokane company, which doesnt disclose its sales, also has an interest in a Wood River, Ill., operation that remanufactures parts for locomotive engines made by a subsidiary of General Motors Corp., Havens says.


The West Plains property formerly was the site of a wood-chip loading and storage facility operated by Pope & Talbot Inc., a Portland-based wood-products company. While the property now has no buildings on it, it does have 1,500 feet of track that Pope & Talbot used to handle rail cars for chip loading, and Havens says the presence of those tracks is why Western Rail bought the property. He says the tracks will allow Western Rail to begin storing locomotives at the site, and the company will put down two more tracks when it builds its locomotive shop. The address at the property is 11610 W. McFarlane.


Pope & Talbot sold the property to Barrier Industries Inc., of Spokane, in 1999, and Western Rail bought it from Barrier Industries for just under $400,000, Havens says. Vern Byrd, of Byrd Real Estate Group, says he handled the sale of the property for both the buyer and the seller. By the time Western Rail completes its office structure, warehouse, and shop and puts in additional track at the property, it will have invested more than $1 million in its the operation, including the price of the site.


The market for locomotive parts and rebuilt locomotives is driven by the high cost of new locomotives, Havens says.


A new locomotive is about $2 million, he says.


Havens says Western Rail can remanufacture a locomotive back to like-new condition for $500,000, although most of its rebuilds range from $50,000 to $150,000.


Sometimes a rebuild for a short line might mean a running repairor getting a locomotive up to regulatory standards to operateand a paint job and cost just $50,000, he says.


Locomotives usually are rebuilt at between 500,000 and 1 million miles, or after five to seven years of service, whichever comes first, Havens says.


Western Rail will work to maintain rail service to the West Plains site from a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway spur, Havens says. He says the Spokane Area Economic Development Council, Spokane County, city of Airway Heights, and other businesses in the area also are working to keep that service available.