St. Louis Regional Freightway to end FrightWeekSTL 2019 with industry forum

ST. LOUIS – A $3 billion plan to double containerized cargo capacity in the St. Louis region will be the focus for keynote speaker John D. Trent, senior director of Strategic Operations at the Georgia Ports Authority.

The St. Louis Regional Freightway announced on Friday that Trent will speak at the organization’s Industry Forum on how an investment of the Port of Savannah’s $3 billion plan has the potential to impact St. Louis region’s freight economy in a positive way.

“We’re excited to be building relationships with the Port of Savannah (Georgia) and other East Coast ports in Norfolk (Virginia) and New York and New Jersey,” Mary Lamie, executive director of the St. Louis Regional Freightway, said. “With the goal of taking advantage of the strong rail connectivity between the Midwest and East Coast, which includes the Norfolk Southern and the CSX Railroads.”

A new $220 million rail terminal is also included in the Port of Savannah’s plan in growing the containerized cargo capacity to eight million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). The new rail terminal will be the largest on-terminal rail facility located in North America by 2020.

Reportedly, Port of Savannah identified the St. Louis region as a “key inland market and distribution center.” With its prime location, St. Louis has the potential in furthering the link from its world-class freight and logistics hub to the national and global supply chains.

Over the last two years, new relationships have established partnerships with the Port of New Orleans and Plaquemines in Southern Louisiana. These newly created partnerships have developed stronger connections to the global markets through not only the Gulf of Mexico, but also the Panama Canal.

“By developing these relationships, we can better position the St. Louis region to support our coastal ports as they look for partners to help them move containers and freight into the interior of the nation,” Laime said.

Updates on the new developments will be shared during the other events taking place as part of FreightWeekSTL 2019.

Held in conjunction with the Inland Marine Expo (IMX), this will be the second year of FreightWeekSTL, happening May 20th through May 23rd. The three-day event is expected to draw in over 2,000 people involved in freight and logistics to the St. Louis region.

The Industry Forum will cap off FreightWeekSTL 2019 as the final event on Thursday, May 23rd from 9:30 am to 11:00 am at the Bi-State Development Headquarters (211 N. Broadway). To register for the forum, go here.

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