Rochester NY is located on the New York Central Mainline and is between two intermodal Stations (Buffalo and Syracuse). Rochester despite the loss of Kodak has a lot of diverse light industry(Harris Radio is located there) that could fill trailers and a number of Large Retail centers that could take in Imports(4 large shopping malls). Populationwise it is now the second largest Metro Area in the state overtaking Buffalo…Meduim income is high as well as the cost of living is low compared to the rest of the State. Wegmans Grocery stores has a huge distribution center in Rochester.
Genesee & Wyoming Railroas is the Shortline and they could build a Intermdal center near teh Airport.
I would think that a big factor would be for the city to be financially involved in the project. Build the station with non-railroad funds, subsidize the operation, tax breaks, etc.
There are advantages to the city to do so. It can bring increased industry, which means more jobs, which means a larger tax base, etc. etc. etc.
You’re talking about a 3rd intermodal terminal within 200 miles. You’d have to show an economic advantage shipping and receiving freight though a Rochester terminal vis a vis trucking it from Syracuse or Buffalo.
Basically, you’re looking at the expense of the terminal vs. the cost of driving a very few extra miles. I doubt it could be justified.
Being a medium-sized city might politically help with state funding, but the size of the city isn’t as relevant for siting new rail infrastructure as, say, a pro-sports franchise which is consumer-driven and needs a large market to generate a big enough ticket-holding base.
The “customers” for Intermodal aren’t citizens, they are trucking lines like Schneider, shippers like UPS, expediters, and large-scale shippers: if Wal-Mart doesn’t fill its own shipping cubes, then someone else does it for them, gets them across the ocean and puts them on trains that go to places where the cubes can, ideally, be put on a truck that goes directly to warehouse.
Union Pacific has a huge and fairly new intermodal facilit
The railroads are not building nor supporting municipal or metro intermodal terminals. They are building regional hubs and require hundreds of thousands of lifts per year to consider such an investment.
The only way for intermediate sites to get rail intermodal service, and indeed the only real way our nation can fulfill the AAR’s ostensible desire to “get trucks off the highways and onto the railways” is Open Access.
(insert dramatic musical note here!)
Because once a Class I establishes their investment in intermodal sites, they don’t like to go around having to nuture other intermodal terminal wannabes a few miles down the tracks. Oh, towns can and do try to establish their own intermodal terminal sites, but they are in no position to lure the Class I railroad to serve their new site, even with premium rail connections. Butte Montana is a good example - home of the Port of Montana, they can’t get either UP nor BNSF to provide intermodal service. Lewiston Idaho is in the same boat rail-wise, but at least they have the waterway to provide container-on-barge service to Portland OR.
There’s probably thousands of cities that would like to have intermodal terminals located in their vicinities, but without the willing participation of the local Class I, they are sunk no matter how many truckloads/containerloads they can muster.
It certainly is a hell of a change from 50 years ago when the Rock Island pulled the wheels of an old flat car to make a TOFC circus ramp in Mediapolis, IA.
As futuremodal said “Open Access” to road and rails. In Harrisburg, PA about 35 miles from my home there are two big intermodal yards. One was the old Reading “Rutherford” yard on the east side of town and the other was the Pennsylvania yard in Harrisburg it self. They were placed there because of the multiple railroad lines going in all directionds, There is excellengt road connections to multiple interstates for truck and trailers. Many of the biggest trucking companies have large terminals within 5 miles of these yards. These factors and the econoics (e.g. industrial base) are all factors in the placement of intermodal yards.