CSX Corp. and its transportation and intermodal terminals subsidiaries announced plans to design and build a new intermodal facility in McKees Rocks and Stowe Township, Pa., near Pittsburgh. The proposed facility will give western Pennsylvania shippers direct intermodal freight rail access.

The proposed site in McKees Rocks would redevelop the former Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Yard, which operated for over 100 years. The project will generate approximately 360 jobs during construction. Once operational, the facility will support approximately 40 on-site jobs, 40 drayage jobs and 100 indirect jobs throughout the region as a result of improved transportation access and distribution opportunities for local and regional businesses.

The Pittsburgh Intermodal Facility will use CSX's National Gateway project, an $850 million public-private partnership to create a highly efficient and environmentally friendly double-stack cleared rail corridor on the CSX network between the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest. Funded by CSX and its federal and state government partners, including a $35 million Pennsylvania Transportation Assistance Program Grant, the National Gateway will create more than 9,000 jobs in Pennsylvania.

In early September, the National Gateway coalition announced that the first phase of the project had been cleared, making way for double-stack intermodal rail service between CSX's intermodal terminal in Chambersburg, Pa., and its new hub facility in Northwest Ohio.  

CSX expects to complete planning, design, permitting and property acquisition for the approximately 65-70 acre Pittsburgh Intermodal Facility in 2014, with the goal of beginning the two-year construction process in 2015. As part of the design process, CSX will work with local officials to ensure the terminal supports local industrial development already in the planning stage.