Warren Gets Expanded Rail Yard

By Carrie Whitaker
May 12, 2009

His small company, E-Beam Services in Lebanon, had begun talking to a multi-national customer interested in a contract that could double the workload at the Lebanon facility, where employees use a high-powered beam of electrons to strengthen plastic materials and sterilize medical equipment.

But Minbiole needed a rail connection, a solution in the right price range for getting huge shipments of plastic from the Gulf Coast to Southwest Ohio.

Timing seemed perfect, when Warren County Economic Development Deputy Director Martin Russell told him about a new transload and logistics park being built in Franklin less than 15 miles down the road from E-Beam, capable of doing just that.

"I feel pretty confident," Minbiole said of landing the new client, who he would not name. "It would have been very hard to make it work without Franklin Yards."

On Monday, Warren County officials welcomed local, state and federal government officials, business owners, train and economic development advocates to an open house at Franklin Yards, a project that got off the ground in less than one year.

State leaders recently voted their confidence in the project by giving $1.6 million in federal stimulus funds to the city of Franklin for building rehabilitation and equipment. Warren County Commissioners and Norfolk Southern threw in $50,000 and $150,000, respectively, to fix some of the track. And the city of Franklin bought the property for $300,000.

"Literally you have a brownfield - an empty warehouse - that was deteriorating," Dave Young said during his state of the county address earlier this year. "Then we put together a public/private deal ... where there was a very small amount of public dollars, and now we've got an asset that really gives us a competitive advantage."

Businesses are finding that Franklin Yards can help them shave costs, Russell said. Part of his job in keeping Warren County businesses from closing or moving elsewhere, is to ask them what they need to thrive, Russell said.

"We started hearing people say 'We're getting killed with the cost of diesel fuel,'" Russell said. "America's railroads can move one ton of freight an average of 436 miles on one gallon of gas," greatly lowering costs.

Since January, when the yards opened, it has accepted shipment of about 150 rail cars for a handful of customers, said Rod Good, president of R. Good Enterprises, who also invested in the facility.

At full capacity, he expects to handle about 5,000 rail cars of material each year for companies in a 25-30 mile radius of the yards, though he's already attracted one business 70 miles away.

Currently, businesses had to truck materials from train yards in Cincinnati, Columbus, or R Good Enterprises logistics park in Camden, a village in Preble County.

"What we're offering is a significant cost saving to companies, we also take trucks off the road, as one rail car can transport what three and a half semi-trucks can pull," Russell said. "With those savings companies can retain jobs and maybe even create jobs."