Oct 28, 2022
by: Grant McLaughlin, The Dispatch
The Lowndes County Port Authority has received a $6.1 million grant to construct critical rail line infrastructure at its West Bank Port on Old Macon Road.
LCPA Director Will Sanders told The Dispatch the port will design and construct a rail spur and 10,000 linear feet of rail line, connecting it to an existing railroad line operated by Kansas City Southern Railway. Once connected, scrap metal material can move from the dock to the Steel Dynamics mill on Airport Road, adjacent to the Golden Triangle Regional Airport.
The project will also include the construction of three transloading docks on the West Bank, which will bring the total number of barges that can unload there from two to three, Sanders said.
“We have never had a rail on that side of the port,” Sanders said. “And now, we have this grant to build a rail spur that will come out at the main line (railroad) and come into our port so we can load straight from barges into rail cars.”
The money for the project comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation and its Maritime Administration’s Port Infrastructure Development Program. According to the administration’s website, the program is designed to support efforts to improve port and freight infrastructure to meet the nation’s transportation needs and ensure ports can meet anticipated growth.
Sanders said the project is currently in the design phase with no clear date on when construction will begin. He expects the project to be complete within two years. Once finished, the port will increase shipping using rail cars instead of many of the trucks that are currently hauling material from the dock to the mill.
“It may be six months before we even start,” he said. “Once it’s done, the port will unload three barges a day onto two 22-car railcars twice a day.”
Golden Triangle Development LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins said the West Bank project serves as part of a longer-term goal to decrease the use of trucking and improve the output of the mill via rails, and it came sooner than initially anticipated.
“Last year in the legislative session, we got some money from the Mississippi Legislature to build additional tracks at the steel mill to be able to accept the cars,” Higgins said. “And this project is to install the rail that allows us to ship the cars. We thought this might take three years to accumulate all the money to do it. But between the Mississippi Legislature and this federal grant, we got it all.”
In a press release issued Thursday, Roger Wicker, Mississippi’s senior U.S. senator, noted the importance of the project to keep the state moving forward.
“Mississippi’s ports and waterways are vital elements to transportation and commerce in our state,” Wicker said. “These water-to-rail infrastructure investments will significantly improve the Lowndes County Port’s capabilities and keep Mississippi moving.”
