Page 81 - PC Living Jan-Feb 2017

THE BAY LINERAILROADBY NICK MAY PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL BOOINIThere exists an alternate view to roads and highways; a frontier that is only ever traversed by slow-crawling freight cars, winding their way through those wild, pastoral corridors between the least and greatest of American cities. This year marks the 111th anniversary of one such railway in Panama City, The Bay Line, a short line railroad that spans from the Port of Panama City and the WestRock Mill northward to Abbeville, Alabama and eastward to Hilton, Georgia. It is one of the area’s oldest industries, providing a year-after-year snapshot of the larger national railroad network. If the railroad in Panama City is an indicator, then the greater American railroad shows no signs of slowing any time soon.Today, the Federal Railroad Administration oversees a state-of-the-art system. The FRA claims the nation’s railroads to be one of the most “dynamic freight systems in the world...” boasting a $60 billion-dollar value, 140,000 miles of track and 221,000 jobs. According to the FRA, the freight rail system ships close to 40 tons of freight per person living in the U.S. each year, with 91% of that being bulk commodities (such as chemicals, minerals and food). The other nine percent are Amazon.com purchases. Only joking. The FRA does say, however, that most items we use daily will touch the rail system at least once before arriving in our hands.*Ken Dziwulski, Vice President of Transportation for the Southern Region railroads at Genesee & Wyoming (the Bay Line’s parent company), says, on average, the Bay Line operates more than 25 trains a week, moving freight in and out of the cities of Panama City, Florida and Dothan, Alabama. Dziwulski oversees 12 railroads in the Southeast, including the Bay Line, and states that even though there are no plans to change or add to the 156-mile footprint of the Bay Line, thecompany does see opportunities for di erent kinds of growth in the area.“Where we see growth opportunities in Florida, we see them in the Bay Line railroad,” Dziwulski says. “We’ve partnered heavily with the Port of Panama City, opening what we call a ‘Choice Terminal’ about 15 miles north of our yard on Highway 231, which allows rail tra c to come in and be transferred to trucks. Those trucks can then be sent to the Port for distribution or put containers to be shipped o shore. We can also have something come from overseas into the Port of Panama City and be trucked to this terminal to then enter the rail network for distribution across the Southeast. That was just completed the rst of October.”For a deeper look into how the railway operates today in Bay County, it is important to understand how the industry connects Panama City and surrounding areas to the rest of the country. Some of the Bay Line’s customers in Panama City, including WestRock, Enviva, and Berg Pipe, are partners who, Dziwulski says, the Bay Line helps tie directly to the nationalwww.PanamaCityLiving.com • January - February 2017 • 81