By John Howell
North Central Mississippi Railroad Authority Chairman (NCMRA) Larry Hart described the opportunities and challenges found on the Grenada Railway since Iowa Pacific Railroad last summer became the operator of the 187-mile Southaven-to-Canton route that passes through Panola County.
Challenges include reclaiming the 80-mile section from Grenada south to Canton that the former owner filed petition to abandon in 2011 and which went without maintenance afterward.
“We have worked the south end — you couldn’t even see the railroad in a lot of places. … Now we’ve got all of that cleaned up, the right-of-ways are cleared and we’re very close to being able to operate over that railroad,” Hart said.
Revenue streams to provide debt service for the $30 million in bonds and $13 million Mississippi Development Authority loan to NCMRA for the railroad’s purchase include the Polar Express Train Ride, Hart continued, plus storage revenue for unused rail. Grenada Railway is presently holding on its available unused sidetrack space approximately 1,700 cars that provide potential rental income of $2.5 million annually against annual debt service obligations of $3.7 million, according to Hart.
Additionally, “we’ve got to do maintenance, we need crossties, we need the Coldwater River Bridge to be rebuilt; we need all kind of work to be done on the road bed so that we can get more, more and more freight business,” the NCMRA chairman continued.
Reception has been good from former and new potential rail freight customers including Weyerhaeuser’s Bruce facility in Calhoun County which will start trucking its lumber for rail loading at Grenada. Attala Steel at Kosciusko is presently trucking steel to Grenada for rail loading.
“When we get the south end open down at Durant, they’ll be able to truck that steel over to Durant and offload on rail cars, so we’re beginning to see things turn a little bit,” Hart said.
Resolute Forest Products at Grenada — the paper mill — now ships its newsprint rolls for customers in South America north to Memphis where it can then be shipped south over CN Railroad’s line, a 100-mile detour that will be eliminated when the south end is open.
“We’re out there pitching and hustling trying to develop grant money, loan money trying to get our railroad back,” Hart said.
“This railroad is not in not in bad shape. This side, we call it the Memphis-to-Canton side versus the Delta side, was for the high-speed trains,” Hart said. “They kept the road bed in shape for high-speed passenger trains.”
“Over in the Delta it’s flat, straight, long with long curves; they don’t have these hills we’ve got, but their road bed moves, if you’re familiar with the Delta. That clay creeps and it doesn’t take but just a little bit of creeping to cause a derailment,” Hart said.
“Mr. Ed Ellis who owns Iowa Pacific Holdings is very committed to putting this line back to good service.”
“Ed’s grandmother lived in Grenada and Ed spent a lot of time there in the summer and walked over to the rail yard and got to ride the trains some and that’s where the bug got to him,” Hart said.
Hart also admitted to having the “bug.”
“I’m genetically railroad,” he said at the opening of his May 24 remarks to the Batesville Rotary Club. His dad was a conductor for Illinois Central Railroad who urged Hart to choose another profession. Hart avoided his father’s advice long enough to become an IC engineer before entering Ole Miss and pursuing a business career.
The NCMRA chairman, who also serves as Water Valley’s mayor, also shared with listeners a statement of his faith: “I’m a born-again Christian, and I believe God and I believe in prayer.
“This project; when we first started and began to meet with the (NCMRA) executive committee, we prayed,” Hart continued. “I believe God needs to be in it; I believe that God needs to be in our local governments. Don’t buy that stuff that you ought to separate God out.