(The following story by Chip Jones appeared on the Times-Dispatch website on July 13.)
RICHMOND, Va. — MeadWestvaco Corp. broke ground last week on a $7 million wood-processing plant in Buckingham County, a project that’s considered a major step forward for the county’s homegrown railroad.
“It will make us a comfortable little railroad,” said Bob Bryant, co-founder of the Buckingham Branch Railroad, a 17-mile short line based in Dillwyn.
He was referring to MeadWestvaco’s plans to process 300,000 tons of wood chips a year about 3 miles north of his office on U.S. 15.
Last month, the Buckingham Board of Supervisors rezoned more than 42 acres of agricultural land for industrial use, despite some resident opposition over potential noise and traffic.
The plant will replace MeadWestvaco’s Buckingham County Wood Processing Center on U.S. 60. That facility will close after the Gold Hill Wood Processing Center opens in April with eight employees.
It will be operated by a third-party contractor, Fulghum Fibres Inc., with MeadWestvaco handling timber purchases.
MeadWestvaco owns about 60,000 acres of forest land in Buckingham, according to Jerry Foltz, the company’s eastern district supervisor.
The railroad shipments should eliminate about 10,000 trucks a year hauling wood from Buckingham to Covington, Foltz said.
The Gold Hill plant will strip raw timber and grind the bark into wood chips.
Those chips will be used to make paper products in Covington. Mulch bark also will be sold to landscaping companies.
The project still will require an expected 50 trucks a day delivering lumber to the site. This led to some citizen complaints about possible backups and traffic hazards along U.S. 15.
MeadWestvaco is conducting highway engineering studies, along with the state transportation department, eyeing possible turning lanes or flashing lights, Foltz said.
Buckingham Branch was chosen to handle 80 percent of the outbound shipments of wood chips because of its access and competitive rates, Foltz said.
Bryant sounded enthusiastic late last week as he discussed the deal’s impact on his family-owned rail company.
“It makes the railroad,” he said.
Currently, the small railroad serves a handful of customers who require service only two to three days a week. After the Gold Hill plant cranks up, Buckingham Branch will run Monday through Friday to Covington.
With the new activity, Bryant said, “we expect to make a reasonable profit.”
He estimated a 50 percent increase in revenue to about $1.5 million next year.
Currently, Bryant said, his railroad hauls 2,000 carloads per year for local industries.
The wood chips should more than double his shipments to 5,000 carloads a year.
For more than 15 years, Bryant and his wife, Annie, and son Mark have worked to restore the neglected rail line.
But Bryant, a retired CSX marketing executive, said he has been worried for some time about laying off some of his work force of 16.
“If this chip mill hadn’t come, then we were going to have to lay off people,” he said.
The MeadWestvaco deal is the latest boost for the Bryants’ line. Later this year, CSX plans to lease about 200 miles of track across Virginia to the Buckingham Branch.
“It has always been our goal to preserve the property, and the other goal was not to lose money and not go into debt,” Bryant said. “This enables us to accomplish all these things.”