(The following story by Shaun Sutner appeared on the Telegram & Gazette website on June 20, 2010.)
FAIRBURN, Ga. — At nearly 50 feet tall, the yellow overhead crane towered over a shipping container at CSX Corp.’s sprawling intermodal freight yard, which company officials herald as a model for the train and truck complex it wants to expand in Worcester.
The crane’s diesel engine rumbled — loudly enough that visitors in a van a few truck lengths away had to raise their voices — as its operator positioned the machine to lift the box-like container off the tracks.
Nearby, dozens and dozens of containers from China, Korea, Italy and other countries were stacked atop each other, in what CSX officials tout as a major efficiency.
CSX plans to bring the same high-tech approach, which it established in this Atlanta suburb 11 years ago, to the dense industrial zone in the heart of Worcester, where the company has run a more-than-century-old rail yard since the early 1990s.
“This is what we envision in Worcester,” Chris K. Durden, director of terminal development for CSX, told a small delegation from Worcester that had flown in last week to observe the Fairburn operation. “This is it here, all double-stacked.”
Fairburn occupies 200 acres of a 500-acre tract on the outskirts of a city of 14,000, about 25 miles southwest of Atlanta.
Fringed by thick forest and bordered by freight suppliers and distribution centers, the yard is orderly and clean, even with more than 1,000 trucks arriving and departing daily through the wrought iron gates.
On the pavement, small truck cabs called “hostlers” darted around, speedily towing containers and their chassis.
Prominent signs list safety rules and accident rates. Employees wear orange vests, hardhats, goggles and steel-toed boots. The two-story brick office building, entered only with an ID swipe card, is as immaculate as the yard.
The Jacksonville, Fla.-based rail company has three other freight yards in the Atlanta region. One in downtown Atlanta known as Hulsey Yard is similar in capacity and neighborhood character to the Worcester intermodal terminal.
In Massachusetts, CSX plans to close its Boston freight yard and over two years enlarge the Worcester facility sandwiched between the Shrewsbury Street restaurant and residential corridor and an industrial area off Franklin Street, from 22 to 58 acres — about the same size as Hulsey.
Worcester officials have tentatively agreed to the deal in exchange for more commuter rail service to Boston and $23 million for community improvements from CSX and the state. After a hearing next week, the City Council, despite opposition from a few abutters, is poised to ratify a wide-ranging contract with CSX. It will also require local zoning approvals and a state environmental review.
“Intermodal” is the industry term for the mix of trucks and trains that is becoming the new standard in the freight business, and GPS-equipped, lower-decibel overhead cranes and double-stacked trains are the technology of choice for freight rail giants such as CSX.
But even with all the benefits of the modern equipment and methods, Worcester officials and neighborhood activists are keeping a close eye on the plan to ensure that the bigger, busier yard sits well with neighbors.
That is why Worcester City Manager Michael V. O’Brien and state Rep. Vincent A. Pedone, D-Worcester, whose district includes the yard, invited themselves to Atlanta at their own expense.
Also on the trip Wednesday was Alan A. Jolicoeur, president of the Biscuit Lofts Condominium Association. As the leader of 43 families who live in the Shrewsbury Street building, about 300 feet from the area of track to be converted to a container lifting area, he was worried about increased noise from the new operations.
Mr. O’Brien and Mr. Pedone have tried to balance support for the plan as a major economic boost for the city with concerns about its impact on traffic, residential life and the environment.
As the overhead crane hummed, Mr. O’Brien peppered the CSX officials with questions about details of the equipment that would be used in Worcester.
“So now this train operating right now would be a similar diesel to what we have now?” Mr. O’Brien said. “It’s a diesel crane with electric hydraulics?”
Actually, while the cranes will still be diesel-powered, they will be exclusively of the overhead variety, replacing the older style side loaders used now in Worcester. About three of the new cranes, mounted on huge rubber tires, will run up and down along the train tracks, parallel to Shrewsbury Street, according to CSX managers.
Maurice O’Connell, a CSX government relations specialist, said CSX is evaluating quieter machines and will make a decision on that issue by October.
The equipment that could be used in Worcester is rated at 42 decibels at 21 feet, according to CSX. By comparison, the current overhead cranes at Fairburn put out 75 decibels at 100 feet, and the side cranes at Worcester now are rated at 80 decibels at 100 feet.
In any event, Mr. Jolicoeur, who says he is not opposed to the yard expansion in Worcester but just wants to make sure it is done right, expressed skepticism about new cranes with such low decibel output.
“I just bought a high-efficiency Kitchen Aid dishwasher rated at 42 decibels,” he said. “You can hardly hear it.”
As for Mr. O’Brien, he said: “The overall operations, particularly the cranes, were much quieter than what I had first imagined.”
Mr. Pedone said he’d like to see the yard in the fall, when the leaves are down and surrounding buildings are more visible and sounds are not as muffled.
Noise from the Fairburn yard has long annoyed Sandra Hardy, a retired store manager and persistent CSX critic. She is one of the few homeowners who still lives next to the complex.
After CXS opened the yard in 1999, Mrs. Hardy and her husband, Paul, were among only three of about 17 abutters who declined to sell their homes to CSX.
On a visit to her house last week, the toots of locomotive horns and rustle of train wheels on the tracks could be heard in the distance.
Mrs. Hardy said she turned down a $180,000 offer for her 3,000-square-foot Dutch Colonial, which is shielded by a tree buffer on a rural street about 400 feet from the yard, because she felt she couldn’t replace the house for that price. “We wanted to be relocated. We wanted to be made whole,” Mrs. Hardy said, adding that she advised the Worcester community to stay on top of CSX to hold it to its commitments. “Get a cashier’s check.”
Robert Sullivan, a spokesman for CSX in the Northeast, responded in an e-mail: “CSX strives to negotiate reasonable agreements with property owners considering current market values and other costs associated with the transaction.
“We fully intend to fulfill any commitments we make in agreements with the city and will work with city officials to ensure they are comfortable with the final agreement,” he said.
Since the company came to her unincorporated part of Fulton County, Mrs. Hardy has tussled with CSX over matters ranging from noise and hunters trespassing on CSX land — which CSX officials acknowledge is a problem — to wild animals invading the vacant homes of her former neighbors. Those houses have since been torn down.
Not everyone in Fairburn is at odds with CSX.
On the other side of town, Anna Reid, co-owner of Chef Anna’s restaurant, and a former CSX switch operator in Atlanta, said the yard is good for business.
“Any business that comes to a city in this economy will help the city because you’re getting tax revenues. That means we don’t have to go up on taxes,” Mrs. Reid said.
Fairburn City Manager Jim Williams said CSX has been a good neighbor, with executives eager to help with community projects, though the company has not earmarked any payments to the city. The main benefit, Mr. Williams said, is the economic spinoff from businesses opening near the yard.
A half-hour drive away on Interstate 85 lies Hulsey Yard in the middle of one of Atlanta’s trendiest neighborhoods, Cabbagetown.
The old mill district on the edge of downtown is home to young professionals and artists who live in apartments, well-kept single-family houses and lofts in converted industrial buildings such as Mr. Jolicouer’s in Worcester.
Dozens of homes and three or four big condo complexes — including the “Stacks,” a sprawling loft development that overlooks the yard — sit only 100 feet from the truck and rail center, with densely populated neighborhoods stretching away from the yard. The CSX yard is shielded by a tall concrete wall running about a mile and a half alongside the tracks.
Noise from trains and containers coupling and uncoupling in the intermodal yard, which uses the louder side-loading cranes, is constant and augmented by the frequent whoosh of subway trains rushing by on an elevated track .
“I think it’s kind of cool, actually,” said Nathan Williams, 29, a schoolteacher who lives in an apartment above the Mill Arms Tavern, a popular local watering hole. “It adds character to the neighborhood. It’s beautiful, and you feel like you’re living next to something old and historic.
“If you choose to live downtown, then you’re accepting the noise,” Mr. Williams added.
Even environmentalists, who originally fought the Hulsey Yard, offer little criticism.
“Freight rail is obviously better than having 18-wheelers running up and down the highway,” said Ashley Robbins, vice chairman of the Sierra Club’s Georgia chapter, as she chatted with a reporter at the Mills Arms. “All in all, it’s beneficial for the environment.”
After his visit to Georgia, Mr. Pedone, who will host a community hearing at 6:30 p.m. Thursday to give the plan a final vetting in Worcester’s Shrewsbury Street neighborhood, said he liked what he saw.
The same went for Mr. O’Brien.
“The good news is there were no surprises,” the city manager said. “What we were told through the public processes in Worcester is what we found to be the case in Atlanta.”