By Nick Worth Reports of the closure of the Apache Railway, owned by the Catalyst Corp., have turned out to be prema-ture. When Catalyst announced the impending closure of its Snowflake paper mill at the end of this month, it announced the closure of the railroad at the same time. However, company officials confirmed last week that the short line, which has been in existence since 1918, will continue running. According to Lynn Brown, spokesperson for Catalyst, the railroad will stay in operation throughout the shutdown of the Snowflake paper mill, though with a reduced crew. “The plan on the Apache Railway is that we will continue to operate on a scaled-down basis with a scaled-down crew throughout the sales period,” said Brown, speaking of the sale of mill equipment and property that will begin on Oct. 1. When asked if the railroad was up for sale, Brown replied, “We’re taking offers on everything. “We will keep the railroad running to serve the third-party customers that rely on the Apache Railway,” Brown said. Snowflake Paper Mill Manager Stacy Wilroy said the Apache Railway will be able to keep nine of the pre-sent 27 employees when the paper mill shuts down at the end of this month. “Our main purpose will be to keep the short line active,” said Wilroy. He noted that if the railway were to shut down, there would only be two alternatives. Either the company would have to file for abandonment of the track with the Railroad Commission, or they would have to inspect the tracks every three days. “We were planning to do the inspections,” said Wilroy. “We did not want to abandon the track.” According to Wilroy, the Apache Railway currently has only two third-party customers. The line delivers pig feed to the Pigs For Farmer John (PFFJ) farms north of Snowflake and the railroad has also derived income from storing extra railcars used in carrying “fracking” sand from Sanders, near the New Mexico state line. The railway shop also does some railcar and track repair jobs. Wilroy said the Snowflake Power biomass power generating plant, which is located on the paper Mill site, does not use the Apache Railway as a third-party customer. “Those two customers are enough to support nine employees,” Wilroy said. He added there is another rea-son to keep the road active. “If the railroad is running, that makes it more attractive to someone looking to purchase the mill site,” said Wilroy. “Even if someone is going to tear down the buildings for the structural steel, they will probably want to have the railroad running.” Wilroy also said the railroad is not going to sell off its equipment or engines. “We’re keeping all of it,” he said. “We’re keeping the railway running.”