Elliston house moved to make room for intermodal yard
The house traveled only about 350 feet, but it's now outside the field along U.S. 11/460 where Norfolk Southern has plans for development.
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Wednesday, August 7, 2013
ELLISTON — Eastern Montgomery County gave up a little more ground Tuesday to the expected eventual coming of Norfolk Southern Corp.’s planned intermodal freight yard.
About 4 p.m., house movers working for Allen Howard, a longtime resident, wheeled his parents’ former house out of the way. It was a short trip, just 350 feet to the south.
That was enough to situate the 1964 brick house outside the 78-acre field along U.S. 11/460 where the railroad has said it plans to someday build a $36 million freight station, assuming economic conditions improve.
Aiming to establish a transfer point for shipping containers, the railroad last year paid $1.3 million for the home that once belonged to Frank and Joyce Howard, Allen Howard’s parents who have since moved to Salem, and 18 acres of the surrounding family-owned farm.
The acreage forms the core of the project site and is bordered on one side by tracks. The railroad wanted the land and said the Howards could take the house, which had an assessed value of $130,000, according to Montgomery County real estate records. Had Allen Howard not moved it to the remaining family-owned property, the railroad was going to tear it down, he said.
Allen Howard, 50, said he’s paying $30,000 to the movers and expects to get a second home out of the deal. With the relocation of the house, the Howard family is completely out of the way of the project.
Allen Howard said he hopes they buy his land, which the railroad told him is immediately adjacent to where the yard will go.
“I’m hoping they’ll buy me out so I won’t be stuck looking at it,” he said.
In eastern Montgomery County, the Elliston project, which once evoked active opposition, today engenders something closer to resignation after various legal and political chapters.
“We all know it might happen and the probability is it will happen. That don’t make us like it any better,” said Gary Creed, a resident of nearby Shawsville and member of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors.
Some business and some government leaders want to see the terminal constructed and were pleased to see the state commit $200,000 for a project study last month. But seven years after the state and railroad first announced the freight project, Norfolk Southern isn’t offering any public guidance on when construction will occur. However, the railroad has for three years run service across an intermodal rail corridor between the Port of Hampton Roads and the Midwest that passes by the Elliston site. Because the Elliston yard does not exist, Southwest Virginia has no intermodal portal for accessing the line.
1. 41-vehicle wreck ties up traffic Sunday on I-81 in Rockbridge County
2. Virginia Tech football roster has holes on picture day
3. Medicare penalties hit hospitals in Roanoke, New River Valleys
4. Microfestivus beer event gets downtown Roanoke hopping
5. McFarling: 2 little numbers are a big hurdle for Virginia Tech football
6. DAN CASEY: Copter cost still stirring up dust
7. Arrest made in case of missing Nelson County teen
8. Roanoke farmers markets making local foods more accessible
9. Virginia attorney general's office grows under Ken Cuccinelli
10. Man's drowning is 5th in Lynchburg area
THE ROANOKE TIMES
