Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Jan. 4 announced a proposed $231.6 million initiative to boost supply chain capacity in central and southern Alabama; Norfolk Southern (NS) is slated to provide more than 50% of the funding as part of a public-private partnership.
Vermont Transportation Agency (VTrans) and Vermont Rail System (VRS) have reached a settlement agreement with CSX, Norfolk Southern (NS) and Genesee & Wyoming (GWI) that resolves their concerns about competition if CSX and Pan Am merge.
The open-top gondola car is one of the oldest freight car types. The first gondola cars in North America were developed in the 1830s, and used primarily to haul coal. Early designs were flat cars with wooden sides added; they were small—30 feet or less in length, and about 13 tons or less in weight. Now, nearly two centuries after the first gondola turned a wheel, this ubiquitous car type has reached a design pinnacle through a collaboration of The Greenbrier Companies, Inc., United States Steel Corp. and Norfolk Southern.
The Surface Transportation Board (STB) has denied a shipper group request to pause its proposed rulemaking on a voluntary arbitration program aimed at resolving small rate cases.
Norfolk Southern (NS) has launched a pilot incentive program at its Chicago, Ill., and Kansas City, Mo., international intermodal terminals in an aim to ease pandemic-related congestion.
The Greenbrier Companies, Inc., has signed on with RailPulse, a coalition of railcar owners, builders and operators whose aim is to “aggregate North American railcar fleet data on a single platform” to increase safety and the visibility of customer goods.
Norfolk Southern (NS) has launched an online industrial site and transload selection tool for current and potential shippers.
No two words torment railroad executives and their investors more than “reciprocal switching”—a potential Surface Transportation Board (STB) decree that a railroad with sole physical access to a shipper facility transfer (switch) a shipper’s cars to a junction point with a second (competing) railroad. The second railroad pays a compensatory per-car switching fee whose reasonableness is determined by the STB.
“Recovering our service is our highest priority, and we assure you we are taking action to achieve this as quickly as possible,” Norfolk Southern President Alan H. Shaw wrote in a Dec. 10 letter to Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin Oberman, who asked the Class I railroad to address the deterioration of “key operating metrics” and the increasing number of customer complaints to STB about its “poor performance.”
Norfolk Southern (NS) has been awarded an A- rating for leadership in corporate sustainability from global environmental non-profit CDP.