(The Associated Press circulated the following story by David Hammer on September 7.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A $150 million plan to let trains stack cargo containers two high in Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia is expected to ease highway congestion and speed movement of goods between Virginia’s ports and Chicago.
Some communities will have to raise the height of overpasses and mountain tunnels to accommodate the taller cargo. The double-stacked container cars used on many other rail lines are more than a foot taller than the clearance heights of 28 tunnels and more than 20 other overhead obstructions along the more than 100-year-old route across Appalachia.
The rail line transports most consumer goods in standard-size containers that can be moved from ships to train or truck beds. Commodities such as coal and grain also move on the railway, but in rail cars. From Chicago, the containers can go on to points west by other railways or by tractor-trailer.
The Federal Highway Administration, Norfolk Southern Railway Co. and Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia announced agreements this week to pay for the work. Last year’s federal highway bill will pay for $95 million. The remaining $55 million will be divided among the three states and Norfolk Southern.
In addition, $100 million has been dedicated to building shipping terminals along the route at Roanoke, Va.; Prichard, W.Va.; and at a military base south of Columbus, Ohio. The facilities are expected to help hard-to-reach Appalachian Mountain communities get better access to lucrative international trade.
The project also has the support of the trucking industry, even though it was funded under last year’s federal highway bill as a way to reduce trucking traffic. Tim Lynch, senior vice president of American Trucking Associations, said more efficient rail transport between Norfolk, Va., and Chicago should improve trucking business at each end of the route and at the planned terminals along the way.
Lynch said the trucking industry’s only concern is that a rail project is being funded by the highway bill, which largely draws on fuel taxes paid by motorists.
The Heartland Corridor project sets a new precedent for federal highway dollars, Lynch said. “If that will grow in priority, we have to evaluate where the revenues are coming in from,” he said.
Government and industry leaders say that stacking a second 10-foot container on flatbed rail cars will cut at least a day off shipment times between Chicago and the Port of Virginia. Shippers save money by moving inventory more quickly and communities along the railway are expected to have better access to international markets.
Currently, Norfolk Southern’s double-stack traffic between the port and Chicago must go 1,342 miles on a different rail line through Knoxville, Tenn.; Lexington, Ky.; and Cincinnati, or 1,264 miles through Harrisburg, Pa.; Pittsburgh and Cleveland. By contrast, the Heartland Corridor takes a more direct, 1,031-mile route through fewer big cities that require slower speeds.
“We’ll need more capacity to handle the growth in international trade, and this will allow more consistent service and more capacity for that traffic,” Norfolk Southern spokeswoman Robin Chapman said. The railroad company, a subsidiary of Norfolk, Va.-based Norfolk Southern Corp., is the nation’s fourth largest, with 21,200 route miles in 22 states and one Canadian province.
The Federal Highway Administration will oversee the clearance work, which it plans to complete by the end of 2009. West Virginia will have to raise – or, in some cases, blast away – the tops of 24 tunnels. Virginia has four more. Ohio has to lower rail beds to deal with about a half-dozen steel truss bridges between Columbus and Ironton on the Ohio River.
The proposal to build an $18 million shipping transfer terminal in Prichard, a small town south of Huntington, is also seen as a business magnet for neighboring Kentucky.