Plan offered to speed port intermodal creation; development delays prompt RailPort's option to DRPA plan. (Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, Delaware River Port Authority)

Plan offered to speed port intermodal creation

RailPort, a company owned by port operator Thomas Holt and Dennis Colgan of freight handler Wolf D. Barth Co., wants to form a private-public venture with the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority to build a ship-to-train intermodal yard in Philadelphia.

The proposal, scheduled to be presented to the port authority Sept. 14, puts the Philadelphia agency in a precarious spot, possibly pitting it against its sister agency, the Delaware River Port Authority, which is planning to develop its own intermodal yard in the city as part of its port unity package.

"We have to be very careful what we do here," Philadelphia port authority spokesman William McLaughlin said. "On one hand, we don't want to do anything that could hurt our relationship with the DRPA. But the port needs that intermodal yard. Whether it is the PRPA or DRPA who builds it, we have to have it."

The Delaware River Port Authority has proposed an intermodal facility next to the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in the Greenwich rail yard, which is owned by …