A long-planned intermodal ramp in Wallula has opened and is moving containers.

“It’s been a long time coming. It’s finally happening,” said Ted Prince, founder and chief executive officer of Tri-Cities Intermodal, the company behind the ramp project.

Construction at the site on Railex Road off Highway 12, east of the Tri-Cities, isn’t quite finished, but “we’re sufficient to start handling cargo,” Prince told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business in late January. 

By April, the site will have capacity to handle about 75,000 “lifts” a year, he said. In intermodal lingo, a “lift” is the process of moving a container or trailer to and/or from a rail car.

“By the end of the year, we’ll be pushing close to 100,000 lifts a year,” Prince added, saying that Tri-Cities Intermodal has enough property at the site to eventually double that or more.

An intermodal ramp isn’t a freeway style ramp but instead a facility where freight is moved between trains and trucks. The Wallula facility will cut down on highway congestion by taking trucks off the road, plus reduce supply-chain complexity, greenhouse gas emissions and transportation costs for shippers, the company says. Initially, the ramp will open up routes to Seattle and Tacoma docks and as far east as Chicago and beyond, Prince has said. Further expansion also is possible, he has said.

The recent soft-launch involved a shipment of 300 tons of hay, which were trucked to the intermodal ramp and then moved to railcars. That reduced the highway miles needed for the shipment by 89%, Prince said.

The intermodal ramp in Wallula has been in the works for some time, with a Kansas-based company called Tiger Cool Express nearly bringing it to fruition last year. 

But then that company shut down abruptly last June, briefly putting the ramp in question. 

However, Tri-Cities Intermodal formed not long after and revived the project, backed by investor PNW Capital. The new company signed a lease and purchase agreement for the ramp site last year.

Prince also was co-founder of Tiger Cool Express, but the new company is separate, and the lease and purchase agreement are unconnected to Tiger Cool Express, company officials have said.

The intermodal ramp site is about 64 acres. It already had rail tracks and a 210,000-square-foot warehouse. Construction has largely involved grading work.