Container shipments through the Port of Savannah continued to rise last month, leading the Georgia Port Authority to approve a $92 million rail terminal project that will double the port's rail capacity to 1 million containers and and deliver the largest on-terminal rail facility in North America by 2020.
"A strengthening economy and a greater reliance on GPA in major inland markets is driving growth at the Port of Savannah," GPA Executive Director Griff Lynch said in a statement Monday. "We expect this trend to continue as more customers take advantage of Garden City Terminal's central location and efficient terminal operations."
Last month, the Appalachian Regional Port opened in Crandall, Georgia, which Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said will give the citizens of Murray County a "chance" to get a "slice of the pie" of the economic benefit from the Port of Savannah.
The $26.5 million inland port, 388 miles by rail from Savannah, serves as a distribution and intake point for businesses in north Georgia, northeast Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee and will help move cargo to and from the Savannah port.
Last month, rail cargo to and from Atlanta leapt by 34 percent, while Nashville saw an increase of 72 percent.
Overall, the Georgia Ports Authority moved 375,833 of the 20-foot containers in August, an 8 percent increase over August 2017. In addition, the GPA handled 86,200 intermodal containers, a 33 percent jump from a year ago.
During a meeting of the Georgia Ports Authority board Monday, the port authority approved spending $92 million for the Mason Mega Rail Terminal. The project will double the Port of Savannah's annual rail capacity to 1 million containers.
The work approved by the board Monday includes 124,000 feet of new track, 88 automated switches and rail control devices, as well as the rail and power infrastructure to support the operation of rail-mounted gantry cranes.
The added rail capacity will better accommodate 10,000-foot long unit trains on Garden City Terminal. Georgia Port Authority Chairman Jimmy Allgood said the expansion will extend the territory best served by the Port of Savannah along an arc of cities ranging from Memphis to St. Louis, Chicago and Cincinnati.
"It is no accident the GPA is constructing rail capacity as the demand for rail is growing," he said. "As part of our strategic planning two years ago, our team identified the growing role intermodal cargo would play in GPA's long-term success and put into place this plan for expansion."
The Port of Savannah is now the second-busiest port on the Atlantic coast, with an economic impact of $126 billion a year.