BY DAN HILDEBRAN
A CSX manager told Bradford County’s economic development group that the area could find new employers by marketing the community’s proximity to the Peggy Line, which runs from Starke to Alachua.
Aubry Brown, a senior business development manager for the railroad, told Northeast Florida Economic Development Corporation members that many manufacturers and distributors are looking for railroad access and that the Peggy Line gives the Starke area an advantage over other communities.
He added that constructing an access point in his railroad’s main line, which runs from Jacksonville through Baldwin, Starke, Ocala, Wildwood, and onto South Florida, costs nearly $1 million. However, an access point on the Peggy Line, now owned by a short-line operator, would cost shippers a fraction of that cost. He also said scheduling pickup along the main line is problematic.
“Forty-five trains in a 24-hour period,” he said of the rail traffic passing through Starke. “That’s hard to stop. We distribute about two-thirds of South Florida’s automotive fleet by that railroad.”
Brown gave the group several examples of new employers attracted by railroad access, including egg producer Cal-Main Foods in Dade City, the IKO roofing facility now under construction in Clay County, and two Home Depot distribution centers, one in Gibsonton near Tampa, and a second near Atlanta.
