(The following story by Creighton A. Welch appears on the San Antonio Express-News website on August 22.)
SAN ANTONIO — Union Pacific Corp. soon will replace its two existing San Antonio terminals with a $100 million terminal 15 miles southwest of town near Von Ormy.
The new San Antonio Intermodal Terminal, just off Interstate 35, will place the country’s largest railroad company within miles of Port San Antonio and the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas plant. And it will continue to strengthen South San Antonio as a shipping hub across the country and between the United States and Mexico.
“We’re looking forward to being a greater part of the San Antonio community and Bexar County,” said John Kaiser, vice president of Union Pacific Intermodal, at a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday.
“The new terminal and the resulting development that we are building here we expect to generate about $2.5 billion of economic benefit cumulatively over the next 20 years, which I think is something we can all be excited about,” he said.
When it opens late next year, the facility will be able to process 100,000 trailers with the potential of 250,000 annually, 2.5 times the company’s current local potential.
The terminal will help remove about 80,000 trucks that drive goods through San Antonio to reach one of the current Union Pacific stations, which are just south and east of downtown.
“This is a long day in coming,” County Judge Nelson Wolff said. “I can remember coming out here even before the land was accumulated and looking at this site.”
The terminal will be built on 300 of 1,500 acres that Union Pacific acquired in the area.
“Thanks to the continued growth of the global economy and increase in trade, the traffic that moves by intermodal is the most rapidly growing commodity on the railroads,” Kaiser said.
The proximity to the Toyota plant will help Union Pacific maintain its base in the auto industry. Ten percent of the railroad’s revenue comes from the auto industry, both in parts and finished vehicles. Local officials hope the terminal will help Toyota grow as well.
“With this rail yard here being able to better service Toyota, perhaps we’ll see that doubling of capacity at Toyota,” Wolff said.
Toyota officials long have said that if the market conditions were right, they would expand the San Antonio plant, which now employs 2,000. In addition, its surrounding suppliers have 2,100 workers.
Union Pacific also has highlighted the “green” benefits of trains.
“Intermodal is a much more environmentally friendly way to move freight than trucks,” Kaiser said. “We can literally use one-third of the fuel and create one-third to two-thirds fewer emissions in moving these goods. It also takes the wear and tear off the highways and out of the inner part of the cities where the traffic moves today.”
Intermodal shipping is when cargo can be moved from different carriers — barges, trucks, trains — without having to be repacked or unloaded. It involves consumer goods, such as appliances and toys, as well as manufacturing products, like parts for Toyota trucks. This facility will be used solely for intermodal materials, which do not include potentially hazardous chemicals.