Port's long-delayed rail line to start up next week

Trains are scheduled to start running next week on a rail line built in the medians of Va. 164 and Interstate 664, the Virginia Port Authority announced Wednesday.

"This is important for the driving public and The Port of Virginia," said Jeff Keever, senior deputy executive director of the Virginia Port Authority, in a posting on its website.

"The roads will be safer because the Mainline has been moved out of some densely-populated areas and multiple at-grade crossings have been eliminated."

The 4-1/2 -mile line has lain dormant since it was completed in December 2009 as its operator, Commonwealth Railway, and state agencies sorted out a tangle of contractual issues and the closure of the line it will replace.

Those issues were resolved Wednesday as Commonwealth Railway signed an operating agreement for the new line, according to the Port Authority.

The roughly $60 million project was paid for almost entirely with federal and state money.

It connects APM Terminals' new port facility in Portsmouth to the rail systems of Norfolk Southern Corp. and CSX Corp. in Suffolk.

The Port Authority built it to help speed cargo to and from the new terminal, take trucks off local roads and eliminate train crossings at 14 roads that the old line passes over in Portsmouth and Chesapeake.

Among those roads are Churchland and Western Branch boulevards, Cedar Lane, and Taylor and West Norfolk roads.

Before trains could begin running, an operating agreement had to be signed, determining who was responsible for what on the new rail line, and a series of land transactions had to take place regarding the property on the retired rail line.

Commonwealth is owned by short-line operator Genesee & Wyoming, based in Greenwich, Conn.

In September, state transportation officials approved $9 million in federal stimulus funding to build a second parallel track to the new line.

The money also will expedite construction of a second, more direct rail connection to APM Terminals' port facility in Portsmouth. Commonwealth currently hauls cargo trains into the West Norfolk area of Portsmouth, then backs them onto the grounds of APM on another set of tracks.

The original $60 million project called for dual tracks and a straight-shot connection off the median rail line into APM Terminals, but costs made it impossible to include all the planned elements.

Robert McCabe, (757) 446-2327, robert.mccabe@pilotonline.com