R. J. Corman Railroad Group receives TIGER grant
Written by jrood
Slide 1 The Commonwealth of Kentucky and the U. S. Department of Transportation said that R. J. Corman Railroad Group's Appalachian Regional Shortline Project has been awarded a Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant of $17,551,028. This transportation infrastructure grant will be matched by a 20 percent company investment of $4,187,758 and by $200,000 from the Commonwealth of Kentucky bringing the total project investment to $21,938,786. These funds will enable the rehabilitation of hundreds of miles on five unconnected shortline railroads in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Specific
investments will include rail, ballast, crossties, grade crossing improvements
and bridge work.
"Our
company will soon conduct a job fair to begin hiring nearly 100 unemployed
workers for this project, which we intend to start work on by April," Noel
rush, VP strategic Planning & Development said.
These
significant improvements will provide broad, long-term benefits:
• Increasing the economic
competitiveness of the 125 shippers on those five shortlines,
• Enabling the diversion of certain
truck freight to rail freight, thereby reducing highway maintenance costs,
highway congestion and improving safety, and
• Contributing to increased fuel efficiency
and more environmentally-friendly freight transportation.
