Approved were:

• A loan of up to $2.1 million to the Columbiana County Port Authority to rehabilitate 29.8 miles of track on the Central Columbiana & Pennsylvania Railway line between Youngstown and the Pennsylvania state line.
  
• A $400,000 grant to the West Central Ohio Port Authority (WESTCO) to help pay for the replacement of the railroad bridge over Upper Valley Pike near Springfield.

James E. Seney, Executive Director of the ORDC, said the loan to the Columbiana County Port Authority is needed to improve the track to handle heavier loads and to make the railroad competitive economically. He said the railroad’s business has grown faster than they could make repairs, and that a line that handled 300 or 400 carloads annually when it was abandoned in 1996 soon will be handling 7,000 carloads a year.

He said the railroad serves nine industrial customers, most of them construction and demolition landfills, and currently handles approximately 2,750 rail carloads a year.

"Although the new construction and demolition traffic will make the line viable, ORDC’s real interest is in what the line will mean for present and future economic development,’ Seney said. "We see rail as a tool to help businesses along the line to keep transportation costs down so they can better compete."

Replacing the Upper Valley Pike bridge is necessary to avoid an hour delay for trains using the Cincinnati to Detroit rail corridor, which as 37 rail crossings, and to eliminate a potential safety hazard, Seney said.

WESTCO will contribute $200,000 toward the project and the Indiana & Ohio Railroad, which operates on the line, will invest $500,000. The Springfield-Clark County Transportation Coordinating Committee, the area’s planning agency, will contribute $1 million.

"These projects are excellent investments for us," said James E. Betts, Chairman of the ORDC.