Business View Magazine - September 2015

62 Business View - September 2015 Business View - September 2015 63 as sub-divisions. Officially, we are South Carolina De- partment of Commerce, Division of Public Railways do- ing business as Palmetto Railways.” Today, Palmetto Railways, according to McWhorter is, “strictly a freight operation which spurs economic development throughout the state. We have a couple of operations within the State port facilities and we handle all the rail switching arrangements for them, but that only represents less than 25 percent of our overall business. Our primary role is terminal yard switching operations and connections to the Class 1 railroads – that’s the value that we provide.” Under the umbrella of Palmetto Railways, PUCC and PTR provide switching services to South Carolina Ports Authority terminals, and interchange with CSX Trans- portation and Norfolk Southern Railway; ECBR serves BP Chemical and Nucor Steel in southern Berkeley County. Other companies served by Palmetto Rail- ways include: BMW, MeadWestvaco, Santee Cooper, DAK, Frontier Logistics, Lansing Group, CMMC, SSA Marine, and Neil Brothers. Palmetto Railways also pro- vides construction and maintenance of track, repair and leasing of locomotives, and consulting services in railroad matters to state, local and municipal govern- ments. Palmetto Railways is continuing to experience growth and expansion. It recently made a $3.2 million infra- structure investment at the Port of Charleston’s Co- lumbus Street Terminal. 4300 feet of additional track will help the company handle a proposed increase in BMW’s production output. It is also working on build- ing an intermodal container transfer facility on the site of the former Charleston Naval Complex in North Charleston that will serve the State’s port facilities and have a direct connection to a new marine container terminal that is presently under construction. The new, $200 million facility will serve all of the port locations for the movement of intermodal traffic in and out of Charleston with its access to both Class 1 carriers that serve South Carolina - CSX and Norfolk Southern. “We’re in the middle of the permitting process for the facility and nearing 60 percent completion of the de- sign for the facility,” says McWhorter. “We’ve filed our application with the FRA (Federal Railroad Administra- tion) for a federal railroad rehabilitation infrastructure funding loan, so things are progressing.” In addition, Volvo Cars is planning to invest a half bil- lion dollars to build a new automobile production facil- ity in upper Berkeley County, and Palmetto Railways will be on hand to provide rail service. McWhorter ex- plains: “One of the requirements is for them to have a rail connection, so being a Division of the Department of Commerce, we’re very involved in that, in trying work through how that connection ultimately happens, and we’ll likely play a role in providing rail switching operations to them. We’ll be working with Volvo, and the Department of Commerce, and with the Class 1 railroads to achieve that.” ENGINEERS + ARCHITECTS + CONSTRUCTION BERENYI.COM logistics logistics