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Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania & Southern Railway entered into a long-term lease with CSX Transportation for five miles of former mainline track from Letterkenny to Chambersburg, Pa.

The line connects with the 30-mile short line at the Cumberland Valley Business Park, parallels Route 11 and features hundreds of acres of rail-served, light industrial-zoned land available for development, said Pennsylvania & Southern President Eyal Shapira in the railroad’s summer newsletter.

“With convenient interstate access and two Class I intermodal facilities nearby, the land is perfect for transloading/reloading operations, as well as build-to-suit warehouse and cross-dock facilities,” he said.

The short line's business has been “booming” the past several months, including a higher number of units trains carrying pipe, vehicles and other equipment, and increased shipments of feed and grain, said Shapira.

“The new line will allow us the flexibility to further grow traffic by attracting new customers while offering our existing customers the space needed to expand their operations," he said.

Because of the burgeoning natural gas drilling industry in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania & Southern now also is positioned to offer companies a prime staging location for materials and rail cars, Shapira said.

To accommodate new traffic and longer and heavier trains, as well as to improve service, the short line recently completed a nearly $500,000 tie and rail rejuvenation project between its Letterkenny yard and the CSX line.

Meanwhile, the Alabama & Gulf Coast Railway (AGR) recently began serving a new Genesis Energy L.P. crude oil unloading terminal in Walnut Hill, Fla.

The terminal can accommodate 100-car unit trains of crude oil, which then is off-loaded into fixed storage tanks and injected into an existing Genesis Energy pipeline for deliveries.

Owned by RailAmerica Inc., AGR interchanges with BNSF Railway Co., CN, CSX Transportation, Kansas City Southern and Norfolk Southern Railway, enabling crude-oil sourcing from nearly any region in the United States or Canada, RailAmerica officials said in a prepared statement, adding that they plan to increase AGR’s capacity to support anticipated traffic growth at the terminal.

"Many industries, including the energy industry, have a growing need for efficient rail-based distribution terminals. There are a number of advantages for moving raw materials and finished products by rail versus other modes of transportation,” said RailAmerica Chief Commercial Officer Gary Lewis.