(The following story by Reggie Beehner appeared on The Sun Herald website on December 19.)
HANCOCK COUNTY, Miss. — The county’s economic development agency this week announced a $35 million proposal to construct and rehabilitate about 26 miles of rail line that would connect businesses at Port Bienville Industrial Park with a second major rail shipping route.
In addition, the proposal, outlined this week by the Hancock County Port and Harbor Commission, seeks to extend a rail line to Stennis International Airport, potentially bolstering the airport’s appeal to prospective businesses.
“Expanding our local rail system will allow our industrial tenants to utilize two Class I railroads instead of one,” Commission Executive Director Hal Walters said in a written statement. “Competitive freight rates (will) allow our park tenants to keep their operating costs low, and (it will help) us attract new rail-dependent companies, thus providing new jobs to the county.”
Currently, the industrial park, which operates its own short-line rail service, offers its business tenants one major rail route, owned by CSX. About one-third of the park’s shipments travel by rail, officials said.
Under the proposal, the park’s rail lines would be extended north to Picayune, offering a second major rail connection with the Norfolk Southern line.
To accomplish that, the county would need to build about 8 miles of new short-line rail and rehabilitate about 18 miles of rail line that runs from the Norfolk Southern connection through the Stennis Space Center buffer zone, ending at the Mississippi Army Ammunition Complex.
About 98 percent of the new rail lines would be contained inside the buffer zone, but the lines would cross three major roadways, Interstate 10, old U.S. 90 and Mississippi 607, officials said.
“We would have to go over the interstate and put protected crossings at the other roads,” said Jerry Hemphill, the commission’s programs manager. “But it wouldn’t adversely affect the traffic flow because we would probably only (run) one or two trips a day.”
Hemphill acknowledged that the cost of the proposal could be a factor, adding its success could depend on whether the commission is able to secure federal and state assistance for the project.
On Wednesday, the Hancock County Board of Supervisors approved the commission’s request to hire McGlinchey Stafford, a Jackson-based law firm, to investigate the legal aspects of the proposal.