A private investor group is moving ahead with plans to build a large rail-to-truck transfer facility near Woodburn, Oregon, aiming to give Willamette Valley farm exporters a way to load containers onto trains instead of hauling them by truck all the way to Seattle and Tacoma. Willamette Intermodal Group is developing plans for the project, according to seed reporting.
The project, as reported by Capital Press, would sit on a Phase One site of roughly 290 acres near Woodburn, with roughly 400 additional acres under option. Containers loaded there would travel by rail to the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma for shipment to Asian markets, bypassing the Interstate 5 corridor through Portland that exporters currently rely on.
Backers say the economics are straightforward: agricultural exporters currently truck containerized freight 225 to 250 miles to reach Seattle or Tacoma, a haul that a September 2026 announcement from US Capital Global Securities says is worsened by highway congestion, driver shortages and limited port terminal hours. With rail service in place, exporters would have another option for sending loaded containers to the ports.
A Familiar Name Returns to the Rail Fight
Kevin Mannix, a Republican state representative from Salem, is a managing member of Willamette Intermodal Group, doing business as Oregon Port of Willamette. Mannix previously proposed an intermodal site near Brooks, Oregon, but the Oregon Transportation Commission instead awarded a $25 million grant to a competing site in Millersburg back in 2019, according to Capital Press and corroborated by the Oregon Seed Council. The Woodburn project is the group’s current proposal, the outlet reports…