Inland Port Greer Hits Record 200K Rail Moves, Eyes 300K Capacity

South Carolina Ports’ Inland Port Greer, positioned along the I-85 corridor between Atlanta and Charlotte in Greer, posted nearly 200,000 rail moves in 2025, a record year that cements its standing as the Southeast’s leading high-volume short-haul intermodal hub. The milestone was highlighted in an April 28 announcement from the SC Ports Authority.

The record performance follows the recent completion of a $55 million expansion project that lifts annual rail lift capacity from roughly 187,000 to 300,000 moves per year — enough headroom, officials say, to meet projected customer demand through 2040. Improvements include a 50 percent larger container yard, an expanded chassis lot, and 9,000 additional feet of rail designed to efficiently handle the 10,000- to 12,000-foot-long trains that regularly call on the terminal.

Opened in 2013 as an anchor for Upstate South Carolina’s advanced manufacturing base — including suppliers to BMW’s Spartanburg plant and Michelin’s North American operations — Inland Port Greer grew at an average of 13 percent per year in its first decade. Today it serves more than 150 customers across the Southeast, ranging from heavy manufacturers to mega retailers and consumer goods firms.

The port’s strategic value stems from its connectivity: shippers using Greer gain access to approximately 94 million consumers within a one-day truck drive, while also benefiting from overnight rail to the Port of Charleston six days a week through Norfolk Southern. The port offers 24-hour, seven-day gate access and 11-minute average container turn times — metrics that make time-sensitive, just-in-time supply chains viable at inland locations.

The Greer-to-Charleston corridor has grown into one of the largest international intermodal lanes within Norfolk Southern’s network, reflecting the scale of cargo volume flowing through Upstate South Carolina. For companies like BMW Manufacturing and Michelin North America that depend on predictable inbound and outbound flows, the expanded capacity reduces supply chain risk and lowers per-unit logistics costs.

SC Ports President and CEO Micah Mallace noted that the port’s combination of high service levels at lower cost represents an unusual market proposition. Norfolk Southern’s Vice President of Intermodal Automotive, Shawn Tureman, emphasized the environmental dimension: moving freight from highway to rail reduces carbon emissions while delivering equivalent or faster transit times on the overnight Greer-Charleston lane.

The expansion was funded in part by a $25 million federal BUILD grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2018, with the South Carolina Department of Transportation administering the state’s portion. Partners in the grant application included SC Ports, SCDOT, Norfolk Southern, and BMW — a cross-sector collaboration that reflects Inland Port Greer’s role as shared infrastructure for the region’s industrial economy.