The Port of Virginia has welcomed the $20M grant it received through MARAD’s FY 2020 Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) for its NIT on-dock rail upgrade.

Altogether the port is spending $44M to reconfigure and double the size of the on-dock rail yard at NIT. The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation is committing $16.7M to the project through its Rail Enhancement Fund and the port will be responsible for the $7.4M balance.

“Expanding NIT’s Central Rail Yard is the logical next step to optimising the investment we are making there,” said John F. Reinhart, CEO and executive director of the Virginia Port Authority. “The amount of cargo we move by rail, mainly to the Midwest, is growing and is important to the users of this port and our overall success, so it must keep pace with the other improvements we’re making at NIT. We have created additional capacity at the truck gate, new cranes will give us more capacity at the berth, and this investment will increase our rail capabilities. The benefits to our customers and cargo owners will be significant.”

The centrepiece of the NIT expansion is 10,700 feet of new track inside the terminal: split into two areas with four working tracks each.

The project, the port authority said, “will double the existing capacity of the current rail  operation, which can handle 368,000 containers annually”. The port will actually exceed this figure in 2020, with 362,434 rail containers handled from January to September. This number is down 14.5% on the same nine months in 2019.

The ports 2020 figures are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and demand for moving cargo by rail is growing, Reinhart said. “Within the next decade, the port will need the capacity to process an additional 200,000 containers for export. At present, 34% of the port’s total volume moves to market via double-stack rail service,” the port stated.

The port has recently converted NIT to an ASC yard system, expanding its capacity by 400,000 containers per annum, and two new STS cranes are scheduled to arrive in early 2021. “As other areas of NIT are modernised, the terminal’s current rail operation cannot keep up with forecasted rail growth,” Reinhart said. “Our goal is to have 40% of our total container volume move by rail. This is an important investment to help meet that goal, to expand capacity, and maintain the expected level of service to cargo owners in the Midwest, Ohio Valley, and other inland markets.”