East Tennessee Railway keeps rolling,
despite customer loss
By Kathy Helms-Hughes
STAR STAFF
khelms@starhq.com
City and county officials are not giving up on
Inland Paperboard & Packaging Inc. just yet, and East
Tennessee Railway is not ready to pull up track in Elizabethton,
at least for now.
Edwin Clark, director of operations for Rail
Management Corp. (RMC) in Panama City Beach, Fla., which owns
the railway, said Tuesday in a prepared statement regarding
Inland's closure: "This is a real jolt to us, and we're going
to have to work with the present shippers and Carter County
officials to try to find some business. Obviously we have
to do that in order to continue.
"As we have stated previously, we will do everything
possible to keep the railroad operating and welcome any assistance
from the local community."
City and county leaders apparently are not going
to let Inland go down without a fight. County Executive Dale
Fair said Tuesday that they are preparing an incentive package
to present to Inland headquarters in hopes that it might sway
a corporate decision, announced Friday, to close the West
Elk Avenue plant.
If Inland closes, East Tennessee Railway (ETRY)
will have only one customer left in Elizabethton and three
in Johnson City, said Keith Holley, general manager of the
railway. "We're working on a couple of prospects, but there's
no guarantee."
The good news, he said, is "we're not going to
go anywhere right yet. It's going to get real interesting
though if something doesn't change."
In his nearly 26 years with the railway, Holley
said he has seen 18 customers either close or quit using the
rail altogether.
"I just hope things work out. I hate it that
Inland Container is going to close. There are several husband-and-wife
who teams work there; brothers, fathers, sons. I hate it for
the families. Those were good-paying jobs," Holley said.
Chartered in 1866 as the East Tennessee &
Western North Carolina Railroad, the line ran from Johnson
City to Boone, N.C. By the time the railroad was purchased
by RMC in 1983, the rail line that runs from Elizabethton,
through Doe River Gorge in Hampton, to Boone had been abandoned.
Today, ETRY uses only 11 miles of the original track.
The railway also has just two engines remaining,
which are stationed in Johnson City. "We keep them over here,
but we use just one at a time. We have to do inspections on
a 92-day basis and we run the other one while I have one down
for inspection. We've got to have a spare," Holley said.
ETRY also has cut its employee base down from
approximately 14 employees in the last 26 years to two: Holley
and Darrell Edwards. "We do it all. We do the office work,
run the train, inspect the track, do locomotive maintenance
if it needs to be done. It makes for some trying times, believe
me," Holley said.
But ETRY is not alone. "The company that owns
us owns 14 railroads. I talk to them fairly regularly and
they're in the same shape we are. Manufacturing is leaving
and the only thing that's building new is Wal-Mart. We all
can't work for Wal-Mart," he said.
Holley blames the demise of the railway on the
North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, which opened the doors
for a mass exodus of manufacturing to foreign countries.
"That's what's killing us. NAFTA," Holley said.
"And here's the thing. Every politician in Washington signed
the NAFTA bill -- Democrat and Republican alike. ... They
can go to China, a Communist country, and have a pair of tennis
shoes made for probably a buck, then ship it over here and
distribute it, and still charge $125 for a pair of tennis
shoes."
Manufactured items don't move by rail as they
once did, he said, though "the trains are a lot more fuel
efficient than trucks. But go down the interstate and look
at all the trucks."
One day, on a return trip from Gatlinburg, Holley
said he counted 447 trucks on the interstate from the Sevierville
exit to the Bulls Gap exit.
"I didn't count any that were parked in the rest
areas and service stations -- just what I could see on the
road. And it's only going to get worse," he said.
