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Georgia Ports Authority Invests $127M in Cargo Transport from Savannah to Gainesville

WUGA | By Jeff Dantre
Published December 6, 2023 at 9:43 AM EST
FILE - In this photo provided by the Georgia Ports Authority, a vessel is loaded with containers by a ship to shore crane at the Georgia Ports Authority's Port of Savannah Garden City Terminal, on Oct. 21, 2021, in Savannah, Ga. Georgia's seaports are reporting their second-busiest year despite a decline in the volume of retail goods moving across their docks. The Georgia Ports Authority said Tuesday, July 25, 2023, that the Port of Savannah handled 5.4 million container units of imports and exports in the 2023 fiscal year that ended June 30. (Stephen B. Morton/Georgia Port Authority via AP)
Stephen B. Morton/AP
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Georgia Ports Authority
FILE - In this photo provided by the Georgia Ports Authority, a vessel is loaded with containers by a ship to shore crane at the Georgia Ports Authority's Port of Savannah Garden City Terminal, on Oct. 21, 2021, in Savannah, Ga. Georgia's seaports are reporting their second-busiest year despite a decline in the volume of retail goods moving across their docks. The Georgia Ports Authority said Tuesday, July 25, 2023, that the Port of Savannah handled 5.4 million container units of imports and exports in the 2023 fiscal year that ended June 30. (Stephen B. Morton/Georgia Port Authority via AP)

The Georgia Ports Authority will spend $127 million building a new inland terminal for moving cargo by train between Savannah’s busy seaport and Gainesville. The state authority’s governing board voted Tuesday to approve the funding, which includes a $46.8 million federal grant.

Known as the Blue Ridge Connector, the terminal will link northeast Georgia to the Port of Savannah by rail across roughly 250 miles giving shippers an alternative to moving cargo by truck through Atlanta. The terminal means every container moved by rail will avoid a 600-mile road trip by a truck.

The Gainesville facility will be the third inland terminal operated by the state authority. It also has them in Murray County south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and in rural Bainbridge in southwest Georgia. The new facility is expected to open in 2026.
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Jeff Dantre
Jeff has delivered morning news at WUGA Radio for more than a decade. He was among a team at CNN that won a George Foster Peabody Award in 1991 for an educational product based on the fall of the Soviet Union. He also won an Edward R. Murrow Award from Radio Television Digital News Association in 2007 for producing a series for WSB Radio on financial scams. Jeff is a graduate of the Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University (MBA) and holds a BS in Business Administration from Campbell University, both in North Carolina.
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