Staten Island terminal ramps up rail volumes

Staten Island terminal ramps up rail volumes A ship-to-rail facility serving New York Container Terminal on Staten Island moved more than 34,000 containers in its first year of operation and is now handling about 5,000 containers per month.
   The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey estimates the terminal is removing about 70,000 trucks from local roads including the Goethals Bridge, which spans the Arthur Kill waterway that separates Staten Island from New Jersey.
   The ExpressRail Staten Island rail terminal, which began operating June 28, 2007, has an annual capacity of 100,000 containers.
   The $26 million facility was built on a 39-acre parcel on a former Procter & Gamble site known as “Port Ivory,” which was purchased by the port authority in December 2000.
   The Staten Island rail facility comprises five tracks that are linked to the reactivated Staten Island Railroad. Containers are loaded onto rail cars and transported via the Staten Island Railroad to the Conrail Main Line in Elizabeth, N.J., which connects to the nation’s extensive rail freight network.
   The rail facility required the reactivation of the Staten Island Railroad. It also required the rehabilitation of the Arthur Kill Lift Bridge and construction of a rail link from the bridge to the Chemical Coast Line to allow cargo trains to have access to the national rail freight network.
   The railroad is also being used to move trains carrying New York City trash to a landfill in Staten Island.
   The Staten Island facility is just one of several ExpressRail terminals in the port that handled a total of 358,043 cargo containers in 2007, a 20,000 increase over 2006, and double what it was seven years ago.