Port of Savannah sets August box volume record

The South Atlantic port handled 330,846 TEUs in August, up 5 percent from August 2015 and port officials anticipate more container business in the coming years due to GPA’s “Mid-American Arc” initiative.

   The Port of Savannah set a record for container moves in the month of August with 330,846 TEUs, up 5 percent from August 2015, the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) reported Monday.
   The volumes were the third highest total for any month in the port’s history, trailing behind April and May 2015 when there was a cargo diversion to U.S. East Coast ports from U.S. West Coast ports, which were facing labor disputes.
   During the fiscal year that ended June 30, the Port of Savannah experienced a 1.3 percent year-over-year decline in throughput to 3.6 million TEUs. In July container volumes fell 3 percent year-over-year.
   Officials anticipate more container business in the coming years due to their “Mid-American Arc” initiative to increase intermodal rail shipments from the Midwest by investing in expansion of on-dock rail space and offering unit-train capability.
   The unit trains can carry 500 containers at once, lower operating costs and increasing efficiency for rail carriers CSX and Norfolk Southern.
   “This is a powerful incentive for them to offer faster, more frequent service to vital inland markets,” GPA Executive Director Griff Lynch said in a statement.
   He unveiled the “Mid-America Arc” initiative during Thursday’s “State of the Port” address.
   The Port of Savannah International Multi-modal Connector will link the Garden City Terminal’s two rail yards, improving efficiency and growing the terminal’s rail lift capacity to approximately 1 million containers each year. The construction project will create the largest on-port rail facility of its kind on the U.S. East Coast – all within the terminal’s current footprint. “The project is a multi-phased program that will reconfigure the Port of Savannah’s on-dock intermodal container transfer facilities to bring rail switching activities inside the port,” Lynch said.
   The multi-modal connector includes five major improvements. The first is construction of two arrival/departure tracks and extension of the track east from Chatham Yard to new arrival/departure tracks. Second, the project includes rebuilding a bridge over new yard tracks and the Pipemakers Canal.
   “The bridge on SR 25 is the linchpin of the project, allowing us to operate linked rail yards without disturbing neighborhood traffic,” Lynch said.
   Running beneath the overpass will be tracks from the Chatham Yard on the south end of the terminal extended as working tracks at Mason Yard, as well as two additional arrival/departure tracks. At the Mason Yard, the project will add two new working tracks, new storage tracks and high-capacity rail mounted cranes.