Inland port now moving regional freight
♦ The Chamber’s Economic Development committee learns about the operation of the new facility in Murray County.
Operations at the new Appalachian Regional Port in Murray County formally started this week.
Terminal Manager Wesley Barrell told members of the Rome Floyd Chamber Economic Development committee Friday that the inland port — which is essentially a rail hub — will feature everyother-day direct train service between the 42-acre facility north of Chatsworth and the rapidly growing port of Savannah.
“We’re importing. We’re exporting. We’re moving out Georgia product,” Barrell said.
The direct rail line extends the trade gateway at Savannah all the way, some 357 miles, to Northwest Georgia and serves as a hub for container movements from industries in Tennessee and Alabama as well.
The port includes 6,000 feet of rail lines on three working tracks.
Imports will be brought up into this region for distribution to local manufacturers or to ship product south to the port from area manufacturers.
This will bring shipping costs down and reduce wear and tear on the roadways and reduce some of the traffic from the highway infrastructure across the state, he said.
The initial projections are that the inland port would eliminate 50,000 truck movements from Northwest Georgia to and from Savannah annually.
“Now they can bring a container to this designated container yard, eliminate that wear on the roads, the emissions reductions and the safety on the highways,” Barrell said.
Ken
Wright, director of business and industry services, produced figures for 2016 which indicate Floyd
County companies brought more than 998,000 tons of freight, more than 74,000 truck movements, from the port of Savannah to Rome in 2016. Outbound shipments from Rome to the ports totaled more than 1.2 million tons, which involved more than 99,500 truck movements.
Products coming into the region can be taken from a ship in Savannah and within 12 hours brought by rail to Chatsworth and be available on the third day.
The port has 11 full-time employees who received extensive training on the highly technical, electronic, robotic crane equipment at the port in Savannah.
The Murray County facility will be able to store upwards of 2,000 containers, including empty containers which regional manufacturers can call up on a database anytime they need a container for shipping product.
Barrell also briefed the Rome business leaders on plans for the Georgia Ports Mega Rail 2020 project, a $124 million project designed to move upwards of a million containers through the rail facility that will become the largest of its kind in the country.
“We’re going to be leading the way. We’re ahead of the game — we’ll keep pushing,” Barrell said.