(The following story by Dan Miller appeared on The Patriot-News website on September 24.)
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The costs of railroad infrastructure investments that will be needed in specific regions of the country are not spelled out in a study done for the American Association of Railroads trade group.
Pennsylvania has 5,000 miles of freight railroad track maintained by 58 rail companies, according to 2005 data from the AAR. Virginia-based Norfolk Southern Corp. dominates freight rail service in the state, with nearly 2,400 miles of track.
Rudy Husband, spokesman for Norfolk Southern, could not say how much it might cost to handle future rail needs in south-central Pennsylvania.
The Harrisburg area is one of three primary terminals in Norfolk Southern’s territory, which covers nearly all of the United States east of Kansas City, Mo. Atlanta and Chicago are the other two.
Norfolk Southern already has invested more than $22 million at the Enola rail yard. The railroad has about 800 midstate workers and is always looking to hire more.
“We are running more than 100 trains a day through the Harrisburg area” to support the company’s Northeast operations, Husband said. “It’s a critically important area for us.”
The study done for AAR projects a 50 percent to 100 percent increase in freight trains daily on Norfolk Southern tracks in Pennsylvania between now and 2035. The number of freight trains on the railroad’s east-west routes in the state is projected to increase by 30 to 80 trains a day, while projected growth on north-south routes will be up to 30 more trains daily, according to the study.
The study indicates that Norfolk Southern hasn’t reached capacity in the Harrisburg area.
Husband said the railroad is looking to expand all three of its main facilities that make up the Harrisburg terminal, which includes operations in Enola, Rutherford and the city.
“We predict at some point we will be [at capacity in Harrisburg], and we’re just trying to stay ahead of that,” he said.
Harrisburg is part of the $2.2 billion Crescent Corridor project Norfolk Southern unveiled in June to expand and improve the company’s rail network along Interstate 81. The project calls for a new intermodal terminal, where truck containers are shifted to and from rail cars, somewhere between Harrisburg and Hagerstown, Md.
Cumberland County reportedly is a prime location for the intermodal facility, but Husband said Norfolk Southern hasn’t picked a site.
Norfolk Southern said the corridor project will “require” public investment. Virginia has earmarked $40 million for the work.
Rich Kirkpatrick, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, said “no decision has been made in how we could participate” in the corridor project.
Kirkpatrick noted that the Rendell administration has more than doubled funding available for freight rail improvements, from $14 million to $31 million. He said the federal government needs to do more because many of the “bottlenecks” that affect freight rail traffic in Pennsylvania are outside the state.