There isn’t much to look at: dusty lots, old warehouses, tar-patched roads and a double-wide that serves as an operations center.
Its simplicity, though, belies the logistical beauty of Cordele Intermodal Services Inc., a South Georgia truck-train depot with a direct rail line to the port of Savannah 200 miles away and the unlimited promise of global trade.
This inland port, opened in late 2011, expanded the state’s containerized shipping business beyond the ports and into the hinterlands. Last month marked Georgia’s second “intermodal” foray with the announcement of another port in Chatsworth, 75 miles north of Atlanta.
The Georgia Ports Authority plans a half-dozen truck-train yards sprinkled geographically around the state. The logistical premise is simple: trucks deliver containerized commodities to an inland port which then puts the steel boxes on trains for a straight shot to Savannah’s Garden City Terminal.
The hoped-for benefits are manifold: lowered transportation costs for shipping lines, retailers, manufacturers and farmers; speedier deliveries to and from Savannah; expanding the port authority’s market reach into neighboring states; boosting local economies; and reducing truck traffic, and diesel emissions, in Atlanta, Savannah and across Georgia.
“We’re creating a web of rail connectivity in the Southeast and taking advantage of Georgia’s 4,700 miles of railway,” said Griff Lynch, the GPA’s chief operating officer. “It provides opportunities for economic development which is a good thing for the state and, obviously, a good thing for the port authority.”
Not everybody is happy. Truckers fear losing business to rail. Neighboring states investing hundreds of millions of dollars into ports face heightened competition. And, as inland ports proliferate, operators fear cannibalizing a limited market.
Virginia first
Virginia created the Southeast’s first inland port nearly three decades ago opening a so-called intermodal container yard in Front Royal, 220 miles north of Hampton Roads and 60 miles west of Washington, D.C. Virginia wanted to compete more directly with the Port of Baltimore for manufacturers, retailers and markets across the mid-Atlantic and Midwest.
The state-owned depot allows local manufacturers to ship cargo more readily to the port. It also serves retailers, like Kohl’s and Home Depot, that have massive warehouses near the inland port, which runs alongside a major Norfolk Southern line.
John Reinhart, who runs Virginia’s ports, credits the Front Royal operation with attracting three dozen companies, $750 million in investment and 8,000 jobs. Now, though, he worries of competition from inland ports in South Carolina and Georgia.
Cordele, geographically, isn’t competition. Just about all of the inland port’s current business – cotton, peanuts and pecans mostly – originates in southwest Georgia. But Jonathan Lafevers, CEO of the privately held Cordele Intermodal Services, sets his sights on south Alabama and the Florida Panhandle.
“The reach of the GPA now extends into Alabama and almost to the Mississippi line,” said Lafevers who sends three trains a week to Savannah. “We feel very strongly that growth will now be exponential.”
He wouldn’t publicly divulge revenue figures, but container traffic has surged from 1,500 steel boxes handled in 2012 to possibly 9,000 this year.
Containers full of peanuts were loaded onto three rail cars one recent afternoon soon to be added to a train to Savannah for export to northern Europe. Exports comprise 80 percent of CIS business.
Quick delivery
Maersk, Mediterranean Shipping and other steamship lines position containers at Lafevers’ 40-acre lot for quick delivery to cotton gins and peanut warehouses within a 250-mile radius. Once filled, the trucks return to Cordele to await shipment via the Heart of Georgia Railroad, co-owned by Lafevers’ father.
“The challenge for inland ports is to create enough volume to make it economical,” said Larry Gross, a senior consultant with FTR, a transportation research group headquartered in Indiana. “It’s like a restaurant. If you don’t get the patronage, the restaurant is not going to succeed.”
Cordele is a no-brainer for the state and the port authority. Neither put any money into the train-truck depot. Crisp County owns the industrial park and leases land to CIS, which built the spur line that links to the railroad.
“GPA is getting infrastructure without having to pay for it,” Lafevers said. “It also gets market reach. We’re protecting any container traffic that goes into and out of Albany, Auburn and Opelika. And we’re also staring down the port of Mobile (which covets those markets too).”
Like forts in frontier times, Georgia expects the inland ports to protect its Southeastern markets. The port authority also hopes the intermodal yards will convince businesses in markets farther afield – Kentucky? South Florida? Memphis? – to truck their wares to the train depots for transit to Savannah.
In addition to Cordele and Chatsworth, the GPA plans inland ports along Interstate 85, north of Atlanta; along Interstate 95, near the South Carolina and Florida lines; and, perhaps, Augusta or Macon.
Unlike Cordele, the state of Georgia is fully invested in Chatsworth’s success. The state is putting up $10 million. The port authority is kicking in $7.5 million for the Appalachian Regional Port expected to open in 2018. CSX railroad will build a spur line into the 42-acre intermodal yard.
Chatsworth, just south of Chattanooga, will compete with the inland ports of South Carolina and Virginia.
‘Friendly rivalry’
“There’s a friendly rivalry between the ports of Charleston and Savannah and each has its area of influence,” said Gross, the transportation consultant. “The rivalry could be effected by the quality of the connecting services that enable different regions to reach the port of Savannah or Charleston.”
Lynch, the port’s COO, says Chatsworth will foster “better connectivity” to markets in Tennessee, including Knoxville and Nashville. There’s enough nearby land for 30 distribution centers too, Lynch said, future developments that worry environmentalists who disapprove of the project’s proximity to the Cohutta Wilderness.
Inland ports, though, reduce long-distance truck travel, carbon emissions and traffic congestion. GPA officials estimate the Chatsworth yard will take at least 40,000 trucks off Atlanta highways each year.
Less truck traffic doesn’t bode well for long-haul truckers, but short-haul guys could benefit. And, as the inland ports proliferate, there’s also concern that the industry will cannibalize itself. In addition to Chatsworth and Cordele, Georgia is home to three CSX intermodal yards. Norfolk Southern operates two in Atlanta. CSX, overall, operates 40 yards in the eastern United States.
The GPA also owns ports in Brunswick and Bainbridge that accommodate trucks and trains.
“Bainbridge is an area we are taking a hard look at,” the port authority’s Lynch said. But “we will not work against Cordele.”
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