Expansion plans for CSX Intermodal got the go ahead June 11 when Fairburn City Council approved the conceptual site plan for the phase two development that will add another 700 parking spaces for trucks, add two sets of railroad tracks and double the amount of truck traffic into the McLarin facility. Current and future traffic directly affects all traffic traveling along Ga. Highway 74 near I-85.

Council members approved the phase two plan with 12 conditions. The most significant of those included the requirement that CSX structurally repair and cosmetically improve the three circa 1917 overpasses and address what council members called the excessive noise during the late nights hours when train whistles are blown throughout most of the city.

Like Planning & Zoning commissioners last week, the council was insistent that the long-worn overpasses be repaired.

“Maybe you’ve been good neighbors in lots of ways, but you should be ashamed of the way the overpasses look,” Commissioner Lawson Sayer said at the June 5 commission meeting. Commissioner Dot Cochran agreed, saying, “The condition of the overpasses is alarming.”

Echoing remarks by planning commissioners on the amount and duration of whistle noise generated by passing trains during late night hours, Councilman Scott Vaughan said, “The conductor sits on the horn all the way through town.”

CSX also agreed to help address the need for establishing a new I-85 interchange at Gullat Road, with City Administrator Jim Williams saying the railroad would likely have more influence in getting an interchange approved and constructed than the combined efforts of other governmental entities in the area.

Daily truck traffic at the facility on the Fairburn’s west side totals an average of 107 tractor-trailers into and out of the intermodal. That number is expected to double once the expansion is complete, said CSX Director of Terminal Support Samuel Randolph.

The only person questioning the plan’s approval was South Fulton Community Improvement District(CID) founder and Fulton County Community Zoning Board Commissioner Sandra Hardy, also a neighbor to CSX. Though not suggesting the council reject the expansion, Hardy asked the council to defer its decision until a thorough review of Code of Federal Regulations could be accomplished. Hardy cited the plan’s potential encroachment into wetlands mitigation areas, the need to address the impact of more truck traffic on area roadways and local residents. Wary of promises to repair overpasses, Hardy shared her own experiences on that topic.

“CSX promised years ago to fix the overpasses but they didn’t do it,” she said. “I was told there was money in the budget, but when the time came I was told the money was no longer available.”

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