CSXT to speed up work on its National Gateway project

Written by jrood

With a goal of speeding freight between East Coast ports and the Midwest, CSX Transportation has undertaken what it calls the National Gateway project - an $842-million public-private upgrade of rail infrastructure to accommodate double-stack container cars, The State Journal in Huntington, W.Va., reports.

Citing forecasts of a
nearly 70 percent increase in the freight industry by 2020, CSX argues that the
massive multi-state rail upgrade it envisions will ease highway congestion,
create new jobs and reduce pollution. A long list of public officials,
including West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito,
R-W.Va., have signed on to support the project.

When completed, the upgrade
will enable double-stack container trains to travel from North Carolina through
Virginia and Maryland, across West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle and then into
Pennsylvania and on to Ohio.

Introduced on the nation’s
railroads in the 1980s, specially designed cars can carry two double-stacked
shipping containers rather than just one container, thus dramatically
increasing the amount of cargo a single train can haul. A train of conventional
cars might haul 280 freight containers. But double-stacking the containers
means the same train could haul as many as 400 containers.

However, much of the region’s
rail infrastructure is the nation’s oldest, meaning many of its tunnels and
bridges aren’t large enough to accommodate double-stack trains. Hence, the CSXT
project, which calls for enlarging or replacing more than 60 tunnels and
bridges.

CSXT’s National Gateway
plan is similar to Norfolk Southern’s Heartland Corridor project, already in
progress along the NS tracks in southern West Virginia. Both projects involve
raising the roofs of tunnels – even blasting them off entirely, if necessary –
along with upgrading bridges.

Also important, the
railroads say, is the construction of new facilities to transfer shipping
containers between trains and trucks. New intermodal terminals envisioned in
the Heartland Corridor project include one at Prichard in Wayne County.

The National Gateway plan
doesn’t include a new West Virginia terminal. Nonetheless, CSXT spokesman Bob
Sullivan said the rail upgrade – and especially the construction of a new
terminal at Pittsburgh – promises significant benefits for the state. Double-stack
trains will speed the flow of goods into West Virginia, while giving shippers
in West Virginia easier access to markets, Sullivan said.

CSXT also points to a new
study by the Federal Railroad Administration that found double-stack rail
transportation to be up to five times more efficient than truck transportation.
Overall, CSX claims that converting 14 billion highway miles to double-stacked
rail cars will reduce fuel consumption by nearly 2 billion gallons and CO2
emissions by almost 20 million tons.

CSXT has pledged to
contribute nearly half the project’s total cost, with the federal government
and a half-dozen affected states sharing the balance. Ohio has applied on
behalf of the states for $258 million in Transportation Investment Generating
Economy Recovery (TIGER) discretionary funds, created as part of the federal
stimulus package.

About $60 million is to be
spent on upgrading the CSXT right-of-way in West Virginia, with the state being
asked to contribute $5 million of that cost, Sullivan said.

"Our goal, if federal
funding comes through, is to have most the work done by the end of 2012," said
Sullivan. "We’re really looking at 2015. That is when the expansion of the
Panama Canal is supposed to be done."

Improving the canal to
allow bigger freighters through its locks will mean more cargo delivered to
East Coast ports. In voicing his support for the National Gateway project,
Manchin noted the reduced CO2 emissions the project promises and the importance
of speeding freight shipments to and from West Virginia.

"As a country, we must
address the necessary long-term funding that is needed to ensure our place in
the global economy," he said.

Capito was one of 30 House
members who signed a Sept. 10 letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood
endorsing the project.

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