(The following article by Jane Roberts was posted on the Commercial Appeal website on October 13.)
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — BNSF Railway Co. and CSX Corp. Thursday announced plans to create a high-volume rail corridor through Memphis, connecting ports in California to its customers across the Southeast.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe will improve its rail line between Avard, Okla., and Memphis, adding track to accommodate the volume of business both companies expect the line will generate.
The business will start in 2007 with two trains a day going both directions. They will carry primarily imported goods in containers headed eastbound. The returning trains will carry exports from the Southeast.
Four extra trains will pass through Memphis a day in the beginning.
BNSF did not say how much it intended to invest in the upgrade or if it will produce new jobs in Memphis, where the company expanded its intermodal capability in 2004.
CSX will expand its line between Birmingham and Atlanta, and will also increase the size of its intermodal terminal in Fairburn, Ala., near Atlanta.
The agreement between the carriers expands a 2001 contract to share lines. It was to expire in 2007.
BNSF today has 24 trains passing through Memphis. It transfers about 310,000 containers a year from rail to truck at its intermodal yard off Shelby Drive. By 2011, it will have capacity to transfer 1 million containers a year in Memphis.
The railroad moves more intermodal containers than any railroad in the world. In 2005, it transported intermodal shipments, carrying mail, packaged goods, paper products, clothes, appliances, electronic products and auto parts.
It invested $40 million to merge its Marion, Ark., yard here in 2005, adding 7,200 feet of track so crane operators could access 250 containers at a time.
For six years, intermodal containers have been BNSF’s fastest-growing business, growing around 20 percent a year.