Virginia International Gateway Rail Yard Expansion, Phase II

Branch Civil is providing site preparation work as part of a major expansion project at The Virginia International Gateway (VIG) that will allow the Portsmouth terminal to handle some of the biggest container ships in the world.

Preparatory work is underway for the expansion of the rail yard, which will add eight new crane rail tracks.  The Branch Civil team is performing grading, paving, drainage, utilities and some demolition work prior to the track construction.

The project is being built in three phases with the construction of the southern track bundle being activated first to ensure rail operations at the bustling terminal are not interrupted.

The $20 million rail yard expansion is part of a $321 million improvement project that will also see the expansion of the terminal gate, the stack container rail yard and the wharf.

Capacity improvements at VIG will allow the terminal to process more than a million containers each year.  The current capacity is 650,000 containers annually.  The wharf expansion will create extra berth space allowing for a new, larger class of container ship that will soon be transiting the Atlantic Ocean.