FDOT official says study key to rail network proposal

FDOT official says study key to rail network proposal A Florida Department of Transportation official working with a Port of Palm Beach proposal to create a rail network that could link five Florida ports said Thursday that the key to the proposal will be a feasibility study now being done for the FDOT.
   Meredith Dahlrose, an intermodal specialist in the FDOT seaports office, said a study being done by the consulting firm Cambridge Systematics Inc. is expected to answer a series of questions about the feasibility of the proposal. The Port of Palm Beach has developed a proposal to build an 'inland port' in western Palm Beach County and also use existing tracks belonging to CSX Transportation, the Florida East Coast Railway, and the South Central Florida Express, plus some relatively short stretches of new track parallel to existing state highways, that could link the ports of Palm Beach, Port Everglades, Miami, Tampa and Port Manatee to a single track network. The track system would likely be used most for bulk freight, but would also handle intermodal containers.
      Dahlrose said Cambridge Systematics has a six-month contract to develop a feasibility study, and the study should be completed by early spring. The state has no direct authority over the proposal, but the FDOT would almost certainly be involved in coordinating any rail network impacting several ports, as well as land multiple counties.
   The study will define what would be needed at an inland port, determine whether the port could serve a port rail network for the southern half of Florida, identify possible locations'in addition to the Palm Beach site'and determine whether the proposal would be both feasible and beneficial to South Florida.
   The study will also look at 'best practices' at existing inland ports. Inland intermodal rail yards built primarily to serve seaports have been developed in Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia.
   There are no concrete plans for how the project would proceed or be funded. There are several possibilities for how such a facility and network could be administered.
   'At this stage this is really an analysis of a concept,' Dahlrose commented.