From Staff Reports
The Americus Times-Recorder

The Crisp County-Cordele Industrial Development Authority has announced that the Authority has submitted an application for a special federal stimulus grant in the amount of $38.4 million to establish an intermodal center in Crisp County just east of Cordele. The $43.2 million project would consist of a new $8.6 million intermodal terminal in Crisp County, and $34.6 million in railroad track and bridge improvements along the Georgia Central Railway between Savannah and Vidalia, and the Heart of Georgia Railroad between Vidalia and Cordele.

The Authority is sponsoring the project to make existing Cordele and Georgia industry more competitive in global markets, and to attract new industry that is attracted by the availability of safe, reliable, energy-efficient intermodal transportation service.

The project would provide new highway-railroad intermodal service between central and southwestern Georgia and the Port of Savannah. The new service would provide an alternative to trucking containers the entire route between Savannah and cities such as Albany and Americus, in addition to Cordele.

Containerized export products from the Georgia and Alabama service area would be trucked to the Crisp County terminal where the containers would be placed on rail cars. The containers would be shipped to Savannah by train where they would be trans-loaded to steamships. Containerized imports would be transferred from steamships to rail cars in Savannah, and then shipped by rail to Cordele. The containers would then be transferred from rail cars to trucks, and trucked to industry or distribution centers.

The intermodal center will have an economic impact within a 50-mile radius in expected growth of related services.