PRICHARD, W.Va. — R.J. Corman Railroad Group has leased a former Norfolk Southern intermodal facility in Pritchard — the state’s only intermodal terminal when it was closed after four disappointing years — and originally plans to use it as a car repair site.
However, long-term goals could see the facility, built for $32 million, returned to at least some of the original use intended when it was built in 2015, the Huntington Herald-Dispatch reports.
On Monday, R.J. Corman signed a lease for the site, and over the next 90 days will prepare it for use to repair auto racks. The company will then look for other uses for the 100-acre facility, R.J. Croman Vice President of Commercial Development Michael Robinson told the Herald-Dispatch. That could include storage in transit — when loaded cars, often of plastics, are held until the materials are ordered — transloading, or even a return of intermodal service.
The Heartland Intermodal Gateway was built by the West Virginia Port Authority, on land donated by NS, with the goal of handling 15,000 containers a year. But the facility saw container counts as low as 68 a month and sustained annual losses of up to $500,000, leading to its closure in 2019 [see “West Virginia’s only intermodal terminal to close …,” Trains News Wire, July 29, 2019]. Efforts to sell the facility for as little as $1 million failed, and the facility was eventually deeded to Wayne County in 2022.
Stared at the photo with and without my glasses for at least five minutes. Try as I might there is no $32 million in this frame.
Go to the Huntington Herald-Dispatch reports site and you will see the long entrance road including a bridge over the NS tracks and switching leads on both ends of the facility.
Hmmm. Sounds like a classic case of overthinking.
Nice to still see the old tower still standing guard.
Political boondoggle. Public money spent with cronies. Surely there was data that would have pointed to a big failure.
In Syracuse we have an “inland port” that is residue of Andrew Cuomo’s corruption. Over $25M spent to supposedly handle containers unloaded in NJ for distribution in upstate NY. driving over DeWitt yard one can see the 2 cranes and virtually empty yard. The domestic intermodal facility is well utilized.