(The following story by John Henderson appeared on the Rocky Mount Telegram website on May 31, 2009.)
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — A tract of land next to the railroad tracks in Nashville has been set aside for businesses to drop off products for rail shipment all over the country.
The “transloading” site on more than 9 acres off Circle Drive also is being used as a receiving point for goods shipped by rail to this area. The idea behind the project is to open up a less expensive shipping option for businesses that do not own land on the tracks.
Many businesses that don’t own property along the tracks don’t realize they have rail shipping available to them as an option, he said.
“That why we call it, ‘The railroad of the future,’” said Ronnie McKenzie, senior vice president of Gulf & Ohio Railways, which owns Nash County Railroad, which is developing the site. “If you ain’t got rail (access), don’t sweat it. We’ll offer you a transloading center. We guarantee to save you money.”
Business owners perk up when they learn that trucking isn’t their only shipping option, McKenzie said. One railroad car carries about the same load as four tractor-trailers.
“You can move 1 ton of freight 463 miles on one gallon of fuel on the railroad,” he said. “That is another costs savings.”
A third party can be hired to truck goods to the transloading site and load them on the train, McKenzie said.
“Naturally, in these economic hard times, people are all about saving money,” he said. “If I can get them four trucks (of goods) on one rail car with one price, and they do not have to listen to four grumpy 18-wheeler drivers moan and groan, they are all about it.”
The Nash County Railroad runs 15 miles west from Spring Hope through Nashville and to the CSX train interchange in downtown Rocky Mount. Railroad cars are hooked up to CSX trains at the Bassett Street receiving yard. CSX ships throughout the Eastern Seaboard and hooks into other train lines headed west, meaning products dropped off at the transloading location in Nashville can shipped all over the country, McKenzie said.
He said frozen chickens dropped off at a transloading site in Troy, Ala., even end up in Vietnam. They are first delivered by rail to Chicago, then on another railroad line to California, and then shipped to Vietnam.
“So we’ve got Vietnamese people eating Alabama chicken,” he said.
Transloading especially is beneficial for small businesses, said Krista Ikirt, vice president of the Carolinas Gateway Partnership, a public-private industrial recruitment agency. It allows a small business to ship one container of products via rail.
“If you ship directly on CSX, they have a minimum (product) requirement,” she said.
The transloading site has several benefits for business owners, John Gessaman, president of the Carolinas Gateway Partnership.
“It allows a very economical shipping advantage for area businessess and industries who are interested in shipping bulk commodities back and forth,” he said. “Second, it also gives (the businesses) a reliable way to bring in and take out goods and commodities from the area.”