The upgraded terminal is slated to open in 2019, but Jimmy Lyons, director of the Alabama State Port Authority says it’s too early to know which auto companies will use it, according to Alabama Business.
Lyons says auto companies first want the facility built before they’ll consider it, so any auto import or export moves to and from the port by rail can’t yet be determined. Norfolk Southern, CSX Transportation, Canadian National, and Kansas City Southern connect directly with the port. South of Columbus, Miss., BNSF Railway reaches it via Alabama & Gulf Coast, Genesee & Wyoming’s 348-mile regional railroad.
The Port of Mobile will, in effect, function much like a landlord to the roll-on/roll-off project that stems from a joint venture between Terminal Zarate of Argentina and major international port operator SAAM Puertos of Chile. Terminal Zarate has one of largest roll-on/roll-off installations in the Americas, a 540-acre facility on the Parana River north of Buenos Aires. It processed 625,000 vehicles in 2017 and claims strong relationships with most auto manufacturers and so-called RORO ship operators. Toyota, Groupe PSA, Ford, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and Honda have vehicle assembly plants near Buenos Aires.
While Alabama has four vehicle assembly plants (with a fifth slated for 2021), several more are in adjacent Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia. Their short distance to Mobile may mean any export vehicles they ship from that port will go to dockside by truck. However, given its significant presence in Mexico through Kansas City Southern de Mexico, “KCS is an option for moving automotive products from the Port of Mobile to destinations in the U.S. and Mexico,” says Doniele Carlson, a KCS representative. Mobile also holds promise of rail traffic from automobile imports and from exports from assembly plants beyond 300 miles from the port.
The Port of Mobile is the tenth largest U.S. seaport and has been involved in ongoing upgrading since 2000. Besides Class I railroad connections, the Alabama State Port Authority Terminal Railroad provides switching and the port is the northern terminus of rail ferry short line CG Railway, serving Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. A joint venture between Genesee & Wyoming and Seacor Marine, CG Railway uses two 585-foot railcar ferries, each able to carry about 115 cars.
Mr. Miller: I’d be among the first to buy your book should you right it. Do it before it’s too late
Mr. Miller: Thats sounds like some interesting reading there! Maybe a feature article one day!
I’ve lived here in Mobile all my life and I can tell you that the Alabama State Docks favors trucks over rail. When they finally finished a ship to rail intermodal facility a couple years ago it was too little too late. CSX or NS don’t use it and it only gets limited use by CN. Meanwhile hundreds of containers roll out of Mobile on the interstates every day. And as far as the old GM&O line that was abandoned south of Waynesboro, in addition to the reasons Mr Miller mentioned, the high switching fees that the State Docks railroad charged the G&M and later MidSouth are a big reason the line was torn out. As for Docks Director Jimmy Lyons, he’s been an outspoken critic of Amtrak returning to the Gulf coast and Mobile. His reasoning, and he says this with a straight face, is that a Amtrak trains would interfere with freight trains and hurt the port. What hurts our port in Mobile is the good ole boy network that have been running it for years. Bottom line, don’t look for much rail growth from the Alabama State Docks,. It’s not their thing.
Mr. Norton. There’s a very long and sad story about why the line south of Waynesboro to Whistler Station is gone. It involved an abandonment protest centered on rail service de-marketing and deliberate track down-grading and a plan to eliminate rail “competition” at the Port of Mobile. The lawsuit by Marshall Durbin Foods uncovered interlocking corporate boards of directors and hidden stock ownership that ended in the Atlanta Federal Court of Appeals. Also involved was the demise of the Gulf & Mississippi and rise of SouthRail; the Tenn-Tom Waterway’s unexpected negative impact on parallel railroads (SouthRail, AT&N and BNSF/Frisco); and a major gift to The University of Tennessee that the school eventually returned. I was involved in this case, and have three boxes of records. Maybe I should write up this tale of late 20th Century railroad management strategies. And some backstabbing.
The map fails to show the remaining former ICG line south of Meridian.
Its a shame that the form ICG Corinth to Mobile line is no longer intact. Had shortsighted efforts to truncate the line at Waynesboro never happened KCS would have a direct route from Mobile to its Meridian Speedway.