Eastern Railroad Discussion > Savannah: a different way to run a port?

The west coast dock strike drove some business away from west coast ports, causing shippers to develop other points of entry. To the benefit of NS CSX the port of Savannah got some of the benefit.

The NY Times has an article about the rapid growth of the Port of Savannah GA. The Ports Authority owns the ports, and contracts the crane, dock, drivers, even the interior terminal railroad. Unlike other ports, where operators control their own space, the port deploys workers.

Although the city has outsourced much of its service, the port sees its role as jobs creator. And regional hub.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/business/economy/savannah-port-trade.html

Posted from Android

Thank you sharing the link. How many trains does NS and CSXT originate from the Port of Savannah and what are their destinations. Which railroad handles the most business?

Thank you in advance.

PRR_4859 Wrote:
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> Thank you sharing the link. How many trains does
> NS and CSXT originate from the Port of Savannah
> and what are their destinations. Which railroad
> handles the most business?
>

•NS
207 Garden City, GA - Atlanta, GA Fr-Tu
208 Austell, GA - Garden City, GA Su, We, Fr
231 Garden City, GA - Austell, GA daily
232 Atlanta, GA - Garden City, GA daily
26Q Memphis, TN - Garden City, GA We, Fr

*note: 231 and 232 both have a large domestic intermodal block. 207, 208, and 26Q are mostly, if not all, international intermodal.

•CSX
Q197 Savannah, GA - Fairburn, GA daily
Q198 Fairburn, GA - Savannah, GA daily

•The following CSX trains pick up / set out at Savannah
Q037 Charlotte, NC - Jacksonville, FL daily
Q038 Jacksonville, FL - Charlotte, NC daily
Q125 Memphis, TN - Charleston, SC daily
Q126 Charleston, SC - Memphis, TN daily
Q140 Jacksonville, FL - Greenville, NJ daily

*note: As with NS, all the CSX intermodal trains handle domestic and international intermodal traffic in and out of Savannah.

Andrew

Lackawanna484, thank you for posting the link to the NYT article. Not much said here in Macon even though much container traffic going to/from Port of Savannah goes through here. Much of NS Savannah District is still dark territory along a less than direct route.

One question on one of the follow-up posts: what route does CSX use to get from Savannah to Fairburn, GA

John

DocJohn Wrote:
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> One question on one of the follow-up posts: what
> route does CSX use to get from Savannah to
> Fairburn, GA
>

Q197 and Q198 take the Georgia Sub via Augusta.

Andrew

How do they get from Augusta to Savannah? Looks like possible route is Savannah to Fairfax, SC, and then line from Fairfax to Augusta. Is that the route used?

John

DocJohn Wrote:
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> How do they get from Augusta to Savannah? Looks
> like possible route is Savannah to Fairfax, SC,
> and then line from Fairfax to Augusta. Is that
> the route used?
>

That’s correct. Savannah - Fairfax - Augusta - Atlanta - Fairburn

Andrew

Does CSXT have the shortest, most direct route to Atlanta? How about Savannah to Memphis?

Thank you in advance.

as usuual, thanks for the great info andrew........

66

Thank you, Andrew. John

That's an interesting point about Savannah being on the same longitude as Cleveland.

Cuts a lot of distance to places in the midsouth like Nashville, Louisville, etc.

Posted from Android

PRR_4859 Wrote:
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> Does CSXT have the shortest, most direct route to
> Atlanta? How about Savannah to Memphis?
>
> Thank you in advance.

NS wins on both.

Savannah to Memphis goes Waycross-Manchester-Birmingham-Memphis

Trainhand Wrote:
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> Savannah to Memphis goes
> Waycross-Manchester-Birmingham-Memphis

but Birmingham-Memphis goes via Nashville or is it handled by another railroad such as BNSF?

I do not know if the info is kept up to date, but this service schedule for the port may be of interest:

http://gaports.com/intermodal-rail/rail-schedule

Nashville

The $10 question: will the growth at Savannah cause CSX to keep the Atlanta-Augusta line? The one intermodal pair running that way as of now hardly seems enough to justify maintaining the line for 50 mph.

SCL1517 Wrote:
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> The $10 question: will the growth at Savannah
> cause CSX to keep the Atlanta-Augusta line? The
> one intermodal pair running that way as of now
> hardly seems enough to justify maintaining the
> line for 50 mph.

Five years ago, it seemed that CSX put its east coast cards on Port Newark / Jacksonville, with smaller bets on Baltimore and Newport News.

With the huge growth in Charleston and Savannah, etc they may not be so confident. So, keeping the line open and 50 mph is a cheap way to bet on Savannah. For now. It also gives them an opportunity to shake Georgia for some $$. like NS shook money out of NC a decade ago.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> With the huge growth in Charleston and Savannah,
> etc they may not be so confident. So, keeping the
> line open and 50 mph is a cheap way to bet on
> Savannah. For now. It also gives them an
> opportunity to shake Georgia for some $$. like NS
> shook money out of NC a decade ago.

Coming this fall we have this:

http://gaports.com/intermodal-rail/appalachian-regional-port

I think the $20 dollar question is (three parts), does CSX maintain the routing via Augusta to Atlanta, renew the W&A lease in a times of major CSX network changes, and hold on to a line north of Cartersville GA which has mad some big traffic losses?

Jack