Florida East Coast Railway (FECR) is celebrating its first-year anniversary operating its new Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICTF) adjacent to Port Everglades.

The facility, built in 18 months on 43 acres provided by Broward County’s Port Everglades, has seen a 26 percent increase in volume over the past 12 months.

The ICTF is used to transfer international intermodal containers arriving or departing by ship—both in north/south and east/west trade lanes—as well as domestic containers and trailers with cargo moving to and from South Florida.

Prior to the opening of the facility in July 2014, containers were transported by truck to and from Port Everglades to off-port rail terminals in Fort Lauderdale and Hialeah.

According to the FECR, cargo moves through Port Everglades to/from Atlanta and Charlotte in two days, and Nashville and Memphis in three days with direct connections to the nation’s Class 1 rail network allowing for service to 70 percent of the U.S. population within four days.

Additionally, “having empty 53-foot domestic containers and trailers adjacent to the port provides more opportunities to trans-load import cargo from ocean containers to domestic containers for inland rail transport.”

That capability “results in more domestic containers moving north as loads, instead of empties, increasing the efficiency of the intermodal network,” the railroad said.

The ICTF, it added, “is expected to reduce congestion on interstate highways and local roadways because loading and offloading cargo will take place at the port as opposed to offsite facilities. As a result, air emissions will be reduced by diverting an estimated 180,000 trucks from the roads by 2027.”