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New rail connection
Virginia Business
January 2005
If
Norfolk Southern Corp. gets its way, Central Virginia
businesses will soon have another option for transporting
bulk goods to ports east and west. The railway plans
to build an intermodal transfer facility just outside
of Petersburg in Prince George County. It would provide
a stopover point for containers to be loaded on and
off rail cars. Norfolk Southern has a rezoning request
for the site pending in Prince George.
The
facility will provide a kind of shuttle service for
products and supplies to and from Virginia ports. More
significantly, though, it will provide local access
to western railways, allowing Virginia businesses to
compete for industrial and economic development opportunities
that depend on global trade with Asian-Pacific countries.
Instead of relying on a 3,000-mile truck journey across
the U.S., companies will be able to opt for a short
drive to the transfer facility to begin a rail trip
for cargo through Chicago to a West Coast port. Once
there, containers can be shipped to China, Japan or
South Korea. “Virginia firms will be able to load
up their goods and have them in Asia in a week,”
explains Bob Martinez, vice president for business development
for Norfolk Southern.
If rezoning is approved, the intermodal facility, on
225 acres off Route 460, expects to hire 40 employees.
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