(The following story by Gregory Richards appeared on The Virginian-Pilot website on February 26.)
NORFOLK, Va. — Major roads in Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Suffolk will soon be blocked more often by trains as rail traffic starts from APM Terminals’ new container cargo operation in Portsmouth.
Regular train service to and from the cargo terminal is expected to begin in March, a top APM official said last week.
The trains will help keep cargo-container-laden trucks off local highways. But it also means drivers on such roads as Cedar Lane, West Norfolk Road, Churchland Boulevard, Western Branch Boulevard, Taylor Road, Shoulders Hill Road and Nansemond Parkway will see more delays as they wait for passing trains.
The delays will continue in Portsmouth and Chesapeake until 2009, when construction on a new rail line that bypasses roads in those cities should be finished.
Negotiations continue between APM and the railroads that will serve the facility, said Edward McCarthy, senior director of APM Terminals Virginia. Short line Commonwealth Railway connects to the new complex, located off Va. 164. But Commonwealth has just 16.5 miles of track, so containers moving to and from the terminal will be transferred with the two major eastern rail carriers, Norfolk Southern Corp. and CSX Corp.
Since the $450 million terminal opened in July, only a few trains have rolled into the 230-acre operation; they operated last fall to carry empty containers out of the new terminal, McCarthy said. There has not been any kind of holdup to bringing regular train service to APM Terminals Virginia, he said. There’s just been “typical negotiations.”