(The following editorial appeared on The Herald-Dispatch website on January 14.)
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Construction has begun on what could be the largest and most important transportation project in this region in years.
Norfolk Southern has begun work to raise the roofs, lower track beds or otherwise make 28 tunnels in Virginia and West Virginia accessible to modern containerized cargo. The railroad must increase vertical clearances in the tunnels to accommodate what are known in the trade as “double stacks,” in which shipping containers are stacked two high on rail cars.
The tunnel work is part of a three-year project known as the Heartland Corridor, which connects Norfolk, Va., with Chicago. The Heartland Corridor will allow double-stacked cars to shave about 200 miles and a day’s travel time from the trip. Because of low vertical clearances in existing tunnels, double-stacked trains from Norfolk to Chicago now are routed through Harrisburg, Pa., or Knoxville, Tenn.
The tunnel at Big Four, W.Va., will be “daylighted,” meaning the tunnel roof will be removed entirely. In addition to the tunnel work, overhead clearances will be increased on seven railroad bridges, three overhead bridges, three railway signals and three sets of overhead wires.
Locally, the most significant part of the Heartland Corridor project is a proposed transmodal freight facility at Prichard in Wayne County. The transmodal facility at Prichard would allow large shipping containers to be transferred from truck to rail or vice versa. The containers are used in international shipping involving ships, trains and trucks.
An economic impact study was conducted by Global Insight on West Virginia’s portion of the Heartland Corridor.
It suggested that the Prichard facility could create 700 to 1,000 new jobs in West Virginia and eventually bring about $12 million in annual savings for shippers into and out of West Virginia, said Patrick Donovan, director of the West Virginia Public Port Authority.
“Freight transportation is the backbone of America’s commerce, and the nation’s economy has transitioned from a manufacturing economy to a trading economy. The goal today is to move goods quickly and cost-effectively into, out of, and through the U.S. and to allow any community or industry to be served by freight to or from anywhere in the world,” the study says.
The results of the study indicate that a $30 million investment in the Prichard Intermodal Terminal will generate a statewide benefit of $47 million to $69 million by 2025.
Those are conservative estimates, Donovan said. For one thing, it only considers West Virginia, because West Virginia paid for the study. But parts of Kentucky and Ohio will benefit from the project as well, Donovan said.
The facility will be owned by the state port authority, but it’s likely to be a public-private agreement, Donovan said.
The West Virginia Legislature enacted legislation last year to begin setting aside money to build the Prichard transmodal facility.
Meanwhile, the Wayne County Economic Development Authority will prepare a resolution to begin road improvements for 8.1 miles of U.S. 52 from Kenova to about a mile past Prichard at Hammonds Bottom.
To gain the maximum benefit from its investment at Prichard, the state must commit to upgrading U.S. 52, particularly building two more lanes from Prichard to the end of the new four-lane near Kenova. That would provide the transmodal facility with four lanes all the way to Interstate 64. That’s a must not only for the convenience of truck traffic servicing the facility, but it is a safety matter, too, because of the heavy coal truck traffic that already uses that road.
This is one investment West Virginia cannot afford to miss out on.
Without the Prichard transfer facility, the Heartland Corridor will be an express route from Chicago to Norfolk. And that would do this area no good.