EAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio — Business is increasing so quickly for the railroad owned by the county Port Authority that an additional $200,000 is being loaned to keep up with repairs, the Morning Journal News reported.
The port authority on Friday agreed to loan $200,000 for track repairs to the Columbiana Central & Pennsylvania Railway (CCPR), which is operating the railroad under a lease with the port.
The loan is for three years at 3 percent interest.
Port Authority Executive Director Tracy Drake said the CCPR is a victim of its own success even though it has only been operational for a year.
The $1.25 million cost of repairing and rehabilitating the railroad was to be done in stages over five years, starting last year, but business has accelerated to where the repair schedule had to be speeded up to keep pace with demands on the line.
“We’re doing more cargo than initially thought. We’ve gotten successfully quicker,” Drake said.
CCPR has already done about $1 million worth of repairs and needs the $200,000 to complete the job.
“It’s a pleasant problem,” Drake said.
The railway is handling 10 to 14 cars per day, Monday through Friday, which puts the CCPR on pace to handle about 2,000 cars per year – double the 1,000-carload minimum originally needed to obtain funding from the Ohio Rail Development Commission.
Drake said rail usage is growing “way faster than we thought,” saying at the current pace they should exceed 3,000 cars per year in 2003.
In other action at yesterday’s meeting, the port authority held the required public hearing before it can proceed with plans allowing A & L Salvage to obtain funding to expand its construction/demolition debris landfill located south of Lisbon.
The port authority already gave preliminary approval for Laurel Mountain Partners to obtain up to $15 million in industrial revenue bond (IRBs) to fund expansion of A & L’s landfill.
IRBs are tax-exempt bonds borrowers can obtain, with permission of a local government body, for industrial projects. The tax-exempt status means the cost to borrowers is less than if the applicant obtain the funding through conventional means.
The port authority is not on the hook for the bonds, but it must hold a public hearing before giving final approval for issuance of the IRBs.
Drake said Laurel Mountain asked the port to hold off providing final approval until January, expecting more potential bond buyers will be interested in competing, driving the borrower’s costs even lower.