The project along the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway — or CRANDIC — originally included facilities for a container intermodal terminal, a rail-to-truck transload facility for bulk commodities and a cross-dock facility for consolidating and redistributing truck loads.
At the time, state leaders, including then-Gov. Terry Branstad, touted the proposed hub as a boon to farmers and businesses, enabling them to ship goods from eastern Iowa to freight centers in Chicago, Kansas City and Minneapolis...
https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/alliant-reconfigures-465-million-freight-hub-project-in-cedar-rapids-20200115
This is really, really important to read critically, and to analyze to see what was 'right' and 'wrong' in Alliant's planning, together with what was changed, and wha was learned, in the meanwhile.
If I understand correctly, much of this project's financial vitality seems to have hinged on the crossdocking arrangements ... a kind of LTL expediting filling out loads for particular trucks. I(I do not know if this was intended to optimize rail shipping in TOFC or intermediate road tranfer to 'distribution centers') Note all the reasons this "seems to have turned out" unworkable.
I note the "bulk transload" (=container transfer) part of the facility, which would likely be of most interest here (and for the remains of the CRandIC) is continuing unchanged, even with the probably-PSR-related difficulties in accessing their 'rail hub' connection with proper QoS.
Strange that a company this size could arrange for financing of this magnitude and apparently not realized so much...
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