Economic development tied to railroad
Advertisement
Sunday, August 5, 2007
GALESBURG - While much of Galesburg's economic development efforts are focused on the BNSF Railway and Logistics Park-Galesburg, the two are not mutually exclusive.One of the reasons the city of Galesburg felt the 350 acres between Galesburg and Knoxville was ideal was its location adjacent to the BNSF line that runs between Galesburg and Peoria. In Peoria, the railroad connects with the Toledo, Peoria and Western, which provides East Coast access via two railroads it crosses in Indiana.
Greg Mangieri, president of the Galesburg Regional Economic Development Association, said intermodal operations are a possibility, but there are other types of transloading opportunities - moving products from one form of transportation to another - that could bring jobs to the logistics park.
Mangieri said both intermodal and traditional transloading operations would necessitate building rails within the park.
Intermodal shipping is when containers are sent, of- ten from China or other Pa-cific Rim nations, to the U.S. Containers are removed by cranes and put on railroad flat cars, which bring the containers to a logistics park. Cranes are then used to move containers into a warehouse for eventual shipment by truck.
"The Class 1 railroads have identified private sourcing partners, like CenterPoint, to build the infrastructure (train tracks) in the facilities, because railroads don't want to put their capital into the facility," Mangieri said.
By working with CenterPoint Properties, which along with Mercantile Companies Inc. is marketing the local logistics park, railroads can use their money for freight cars, crews, rails on their systems and other infrastructure.
Mangieri said rail-to-highway loading is a better possibility. Lumber products, grain, agricultural products, steel, automotive products, "anything shipped in bulk at some point has to be transloaded from railroads to high- way modes" of transportation.
State Rep. Don Moffitt, R-Gilson, likes the idea of linking ethanol and other agricultural products for shipping to and from Galesburg.
"In Galesburg, Knox County and western Illinois, we have two absolute competitive advantages over many other places," Moffitt said. "We are a railroad hub. Another competitive advantage is we're in one of the richest agricultural areas in the nation. Anything we can do to link those advantages together means more money for the community."
In the second quarter of this year, shipment of agricultural products was the strongest segment of BNSF's business, because of fertilizer needed for additional corn acreage to feed the growing ethanol demand.
Mangieri said a series of tracks long enough for 12-15 flat cars would be needed for a transloading operation.
"You have heavy equipment that would unload the product to a warehouse," he said. The product would later be picked up from the warehouse by a truck, which would deliver the products.
"Obviously, intermodal is great, it would be a home run," Mangieri said. "But there are a whole number of commodities that rails haul" that could work in a traditional transloading operation.
Mangieri said, "The thing that is traditionally overlooked, transload facilities create residual jobs."
He said other jobs are usually created at a ratio of 3:1, 4:1 or 5:1, residual jobs to transloading jobs. Everything from more truck drivers and people to handle data input to additional warehouse employees and others would be needed.
