‘It’s the whole ‘field of dreams.’ If you build it, they will come,” said Robert B. Nicholson III, President/CEO of Eastern Propane Corporation, speaking of the proposed 60 million-gallon ethanol plant in Indian Orchard.
A guest aboard the Stourbridge Line, Saturday, Nicholson was one of about 30 guests invited to tour the proposed plant site by train. Nicholson was interested in the increased rail service the proposed plant would bring, making shipping more affordable. Nicholson said, “other businesses would certainly look, over time, to locate here, given the viability of the rail and the more efficient ways of shipping and receiving, then via truck,” he said. Dave Williams, Media Director for the Wayne-Pike County Farm Bureau gave a talk on the proposed plant prior to the tour. Williams says the Wayne-Pike County Farm Bureau is in the process of handing over the reigns for the proposed project to Indian Orchard Renewable Energy LLC.
“To give you an idea how economical trains are, one ton of cargo on a train can go 433 miles on one gallon of fuel,” said Williams. He says a train can move one ton of product 433 miles for one gallon of fuel whereas a tractor trailer driver is getting about 5 1/2 miles to the gallon, but moving 25 tons of product. “So it’s one fifth of what it would cost to truck it in,” Williams said. “And the idea of this is not to the put the trucking industry out of business, the idea is to alleviate, so they have shorter hauls,” he said. Utilizing the rail would, “It alleviates a whole lot of traffic. And here, in an area that is a tourist area, the last thing we want is trucks running up and down the road 24-hours a day ...So, by alleviating that, you’ve got less cost to the highways. You’ve got less maintenance. You’ve got less traffic. And you’ve got more scenic value. It’s just a win thing all the way through,” Williams said.
“If you create the need for rail, which the ethanol plant does because naturally, it’ll have shipments of corn, shipments going out and coming in,” Williams said. “The rail costs would go down dramatically by the amounts that we use,” he said. Williams projected they’d generate,“20 car loads a day minimum coming into Wayne County,”or, “twice a week with a hundred cars,” he said.
Michael C. Bast II, President of Central Pennsylvania Rail Corporation, contracted by the Stourbridge Railroad, to provide service and maintenance, said once the bridge in Hawley is re-established in July (the bridge was washed out two years ago), the railroad will reconnect with Lackawaxen, and the New York Susquehanna and Western Railway. “Once the bridge gets back in, we’ll have continuity from one end to the other and we’ll be able to bring stuff in and out,” Bast said. He says a product shipped from Wayne County could go anywhere. “It could go to Mexico, Canada, California, anywhere in the Continental United States. Or it could even go to a Port, like Baltimore, and get transferred onto a boat and go worldwide,” Bast said.
Bast said four companies have shown an interest in utilizing the rail to move product, including Distributors Stock Forms Incorporated (DSFI), Gumble Brothers Inc. (lumber company), and the proposed ethanol plant. Gary Linde, Vice President of Leeward Construction, a guest on the tour, said he also would be interested in moving rock from their quarries via train.
“Honesdale’s the birthplace of the Commercial Railroad. If nothing else, this would create an equity that would continue the tradition of keeping that railroad open for another 50 to 100 years. So, to me, that’s a vital part of it, too,” said Williams.
