PRICHARD, W.Va. — The Marshall University Research Corporation (MURC) will receive a U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) grant to help Wayne County with the Heartland Intermodal Gateway facility.
U.S. Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced the $376,325 EDA grant last week.
The Heartland Intermodal Gateway — the truck and rail transfer facility in Prichard that never lived up to its promise — was deeded to the Wayne County Commission in August of last year.
“The Wayne County Commission still owns the property and is part of a collaborative effort with HADCO and MURC to move the project forward,” said Leah Payne, director of University Communications at Marshall. “MURC has been awarded funding help the commission facilitate the transfer process and prepare the necessary bid correspondence for a new operator for the intermodal gateway facility.”
In July 2022, the West Virginia Board of Public Works, which is composed of Gov. Jim Justice and other statewide elected officials not on the Supreme Court of Appeals, approved the transfer of the facility to the Wayne County Commission.
“At the end of the day, when it comes to making sure the Heartland Intermodal Gateway is operating as its very best, there is no one better to lead the way than local leaders in Wayne County,” Justice said in a prepared statement last year. “These are the people who are personally committed to making sure this important gateway succeeds, so it makes all the sense in the world to let the people with the most intimate knowledge take the reins.”
Built by the former West Virginia Public Port Authority following a 2013 agreement with Norfolk Southern railroad, the 65-acre facility at the southern end of Prichard was designed to transfer 20-foot and 40-foot shipping containers between railcars and trucks. The $32 million project was paid for with a combination of state money and a federal grant award.
It was one of several intermodal facilities built along what Norfolk Southern calls its 530-mile Heartland Corridor between its ocean port at the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area and Chicago. To build the corridor, tunnels and bridges were enlarged to enable double-stacking of cargo containers on railroad flatcars.
The intermodal facility at Prichard opened in 2015 and never justified itself economically. Then-West Virginia Transportation Secretary Byrd White told legislators in January 2020 that the facility never came close to the minimum 15,000 “lifts” of containers to and from railcars that Norfolk Southern demanded, with a total of just 579 lifts for the entire 2018-19 budget year.
In the news release, Justice and the West Virginia Department of Transportation decided the best use for the facility would be to transfer ownership to local stakeholders who are most interested in seeing the Heartland Intermodal Gateway succeed.
The news release included this statement from the Wayne County Commission: “The Commission is currently working with Marshall University’s Appalachian Transportation Institute (ATI), the Huntington Area Development Council (HADCO) and experts in the field of transportation to see what role this facility will provide in support of fragile supply chains. We are excited about the economic opportunity this facility offers Wayne County going forward.”