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Intermodal hub study brings interesting results
BY Marthe Stinton, mstinton@acnpapers.com
In October 2009, the North Texas Council of Government began conducting a study to determine if an intermodal hub is needed in Collin County.
An intermodal hub is designed to move cargo or freight and other goods from one form of transportation to another — be it highways, rail or sea. There are currently three hubs in the area: the Alliance Intermodal Facility in Fort Worth, the Zacha Junction and the Dallas Intermodal Terminal in Dallas.
Collin County, the North East Texas Rural Rail Transportation District (NETEX), and the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) began this feasibility study to determine if the need for another regional intermodal or logistics hub exists. Although the findings will not be published until January, the NCTCOG presented information at this week’s Collin County Commissioner’s Court meeting.
His answer was, “unquestionably, yes.”
“If we don’t have it in Collin County, Hunt County is very desirous of having this facility,” he said. “So, Collin County would have all of the traffic but none of the economic benefit of an intermodal facility in the county. That is something you need to keep in the forefront of your mind as you consider this in the future.”
Five areas were considered for the hub including Celina, Melissa, Farmersville, one on the Outer Loop and one at the Collin County Airport in McKinney.
In order to fulfill its purpose, the sites considered needed to meet certain criteria. The hub would need at least 2,500 acres — preferably on flat land — access to a rail line, where the land adjacent to the rail is linear, a minimum of 10,000 feet of track, access to a major roadway facility, air transportation, and utilities like water, electricity, gas and pipelines, sanitation, and storm water.
Farmersville was deemed best suited for the hub, but further study and funding is needed.
The next steps for the NCTCOG will be completion of an implementation report, development of partnerships of education and manufacturing, and development of a timeline for the creation of a logistics park.
According to the presentation, while the city of Farmersville and Collin County could move ahead with efforts to make the Farmersville site attractive as an intermodal hub site, the decision to place an intermodal hub within Collin County ultimately rests with the Class I Railroads.
One such railroad is the Kansas City Southern, whose rail line runs down the east side of Lake Lavon and who Self believes are “the ones to talk to.”
“The very next step is to figure out what Kansas City Southern is doing at their Wylie yard,” Self said.
Self said the KCS is planning an upgrade to its Wylie switchyard.
“I know that they planned an upgrade at the Wyllie switchyard,” he said. “We need to figure out what they have planned and go from there. Beyond that, if any of the other railroads have plans we would talk to them as well, but the railroads are the key to an intermodal facility.”
Without the railroads, Self said there was no point in continuing.
“We have got to have the railroads involved,” Self said. “They are in the private sector and we need to know what they have planned before we get out ahead of the private sector. I think they have a major upgrade on the horizon.”
He said whether the area needs another intermodal hub depends greatly on how large the upgrade at KCS will be and if other railroads are interested. The study, Self said, was done in a “vacuum with government entities,” and it puts a damper on the study without input from the railroads.
“I kept asking if they had talked to the railroads, but they were doing a sterile analysis of the area,” he said. “If we plan to take if further we would have to talk to them.”
Commissioner-elect Cheryl Williams agreed.
“I think we need to be more realistic when we do a study,” Williams said. “We don’t live in a sterile environment. There are players, communities and forces in place that have to be taken into consideration. It would take less money in the long run if you speak with them in the beginning, rather than getting hit in the face with it at the end. There is nothing wrong with injecting a little realism into some of our efforts.”
Williams spoke with Kansas City Southern and is under the impression the railroad is in the process of upgrading as well.
“The odds of them wanting to look beyond that to something like Farmersville is pretty unlikely,” she said. “They plan on first moving their operations, then developing around it. The city is aware, the zoning is in place, and I think we have our surrogate on the intermodal.”
Williams likened the study to the April 2009 Lake Lavon study where the Army Corps of Engineers was the last to be considered in a bridge route for a Technically Feasible Alignment across Lavon Lake.
“Some of the players have the most important input and should be the first we have discussions with, not the last,” she said.
But Becky Karasco, who presented the study, said there was a meeting with KCS in April and Doniele Carlson, a spokesperson for KCS confirmed.
“KCS last met with the North Central Texas Council of Governments, including its executive director Michael Morris, in April of 2010 to discuss NCTCOG’s feasibility study for a possible future intermodal hub in Collin County,” Carlson said. “In that meeting, KCS was told by the NCTCOG that it was studying potential intermodal sites in the northern part of the DFW metroplex and that the KCS Wylie location would be considered a lead site in their study.”
Carlson said KCS has routinely checked with NCTCOG and shown willingness to be part of any study but has not received word that the Wylie site would or wouldn’t be included in the study. She did say that KCS has a few plans of its own.
“KCS has a long-term vision to develop an intermodal facility in Collin County near Wylie, although no definitive plan for such a facility has been committed to at this time,” she said.
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