First rail car lands in Quincy

Port ultimately aims to diversify service

QUINCY — After years in the making, the first rail car dropped off product at the Port of Quincy's intermodal train yard Monday afternoon.

Bearing 1,800 4-foot by 8-foot sheets of cement board for an Entezar housing development, the car pulled into the yard at about 1:20 p.m., where Operations Manager Lane Guenther and Business Development Manager Nick Parker unloaded the cargo onto the ground.

The car's arrival marks the latest step in a long history of the intermodal project, first discussed in the 1970s and in its current incarnation for at least the last three to four years.

The car, which originated in Texas, was supposed to arrive earlier this month. Guenther and Parker explained the cargo came via manifest train, which has lower priority on the railroad and makes many stops.

"It got caught up somewhere in kind of the Midwest area," Parker said.

"As far as the receiving end of it, there's not really much we can do about it, and it's not really on us," Guenther said. "The shipper can prioritize it, I think, if he would like or choose not to. Basically, when you're receiving, it gets here when it gets here and you deal with it."

Parker admitted some frustration exists because it's the first operation for the yard.

"We want to see it come to fruition, but at the same time, there's nothing you can do about it," he said. "Our goal, once we get a little more developed and into containerized freight, once we have the volume where we have a dedicated service, this shouldn't be an issue."

That's contingent upon a number of factors, Parker said.

"The ultimate goal here is we want to diversify our services out here as much as possible," he said. "Like any kind of start-up business, we're looking at what equipment we need to purchase, lease or have on hand to give our customers the best service possible. Nothing's concrete at this point."

"It's exciting to have the first train enter our intermodal yard and go over the switches and find out that physically it passed the test," Quincy port Commissioner Curt Morris said.

The facility has been operational for the last year and a half, he added, noting the port is working with the railroad as far as a service contract, but is now able to receive shipments.

"We know it's operational and now our job is to go find more business," he said. "Just to have a receiving station for people that wanted to ship things to Quincy by rail, now we have a place to unload them … (It) hopefully will be the beginning of forever increasing business."