(The Associated Press circulated the following article on July 2.)
NORFOLK, Va. — Norfolk Southern has selected 50 acres as its “preferred site” for an $18 million shipping yard, Montgomery County officials announced.
The news was not welcome by Doug Sink, who said he had no plans to sell his childhood home in Elliston.
In June, he got a registered letter telling him some of his 34 acres would be needed for the proposed shipping yard.
“You can’t stop the railroad,” he said. “You can’t stop the highway. You can’t stop Appalachian’s power lines and you can’t stop sewer lines and water lines. Progress, I reckon.”
Trains park in and pass through the area now, but the intermodal facility would be a major center of activity. Intermodal shipping puts goods in containers that can be transferred among trains, ships and trucks. It is meant to be a more efficient system that reduces truck traffic.
Local reaction to the news was mixed.
“It’s going to be good for business. It’s going to be good for jobs down here,” said Lucy Clark, owner of the Sunset Deli Mart, who conceded that “it’s going to be a lot more trains, a lot more noise.”
While Norfolk Southern officials did not give any details about the plan, the county’s economic development director, Bob Isner, said he was told the company looked at three sites in the Roanoke Valley, but settled on Elliston, which has easy access to Interstate 81.
The 50 acres that make up Norfolk Southern’s preferred site are owned by 10 parties. Each received letters from the railroad saying the company wanted to buy “all or part” of their land, The Roanoke Times reported.
Norfolk Southern spokesman Robin Chapman confirmed the company is talking to property owners, but would not discuss the project’s location or effects. “What happens next is dependent on how negotiations go with the property owners,” he said.
Frank Howard and his son own acreage on the Montgomery County line, east of the Rowe Furniture plant. The land has been in the family nearly a century.
The Elliston facility would be part of the Heartland Corridor, a project that aims to speed transport from Columbus, Ohio, to Norfolk.
A similar facility near Front Royal has attracted $500 million in investments and 5,000 jobs over 30 years.
“An intermodal facility in the region would be a huge benefit economically,” said Aric Bopp, executive director of the New River Valley Economic Development Alliance.
The economic benefit, Bopp added, would likely be felt within a 50- to 75-mile radius.
Howard, a lifelong resident of Elliston, acknowledges the potential economic benefits of the project, but said he is torn between a plus for the community and his own concerns about his “homeplace.”
“I think it could be an asset for the community — jobs, more money for the county,” the 71-year-old said. “But it’s asking a whole lot of a man to ask him to give up his home and not know where to go, you just don’t ever know what lies ahead, especially at my age.”
D.J. Largen’s home is located by train tracks that run near the site. A line of coal cars was parked there Wednesday.
The trains don’t bother him now, but a steady stream of trains would be different.
“It’s so pretty in the country,” he said. “You don’t want to take that away. That’s what we came here for.”