(The following story by John D. Boyd appeared on The Journal of Commerce website on February 25, 2010.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Norfolk Southern Railway hopes to begin construction by July on new intermodal terminals in Memphis, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala., now that it has a large stimulus grant to help pay for them.
“We want to start turning dirt this summer,” said NS spokesman Rudy Husband. Both facilities are projected to open for traffic in 2012.
The two terminals are part of the NS Crescent Corridor development plan, which aims to remake an old rail route from the Mississippi Delta to the Northeast into a refurbished, high-speed route for double-stacked intermodal trains. Part of the plan is to build road-train connecting hubs along the way to load and unload containers.
On Feb. 17, the Department of Transportation awarded the largest of its discretionary surface transportation grants from last year’s stimulus law – worth $105 million out of a total nationwide grant fund of $1.5 billion – to NS for those two terminals on the Crescent Corridor.
While that will help NS with the projected $112 million cost of building each facility, the grant was still much less than the railroad requested. It is splitting the grant in half to apply $52.5 million to each terminal, and will have to find funding for the rest or scale back its site plans. NS is in talks with the states about their potential contributions.
Husband said both terminal projects are going through steps to meet environmental requirements, which could be done this spring. That would clear the way for NS to put the grant money to work on construction soon after.