I had the opportunity to participate in a conference call on August 26th regarding Norfolk Southern’s inauguration of its Heartland Corridor service in September. The discussion was hosted by Jeff Heller, Vice President of International Intermodal at Norfolk Southern. While many of us are familiar with this project, Mr. Heller gave the attendees a good overview of the project and answered questions from the audience.
In summary, the Heartland Corridor project has raised clearances over a route between the Port of Norfolk, Virginia and the Midwest (Ohio, Michigan, and Chicago) to facilitate double stack container trains on the most direct route west from Norfolk. The following benefits come from this project:
- The new 200 mile shorter, more direct, route saves time and fuel versus the current routing via Harrisburg and Pittsburgh Pennsylvania to enable trains to better compete with trucks
- Double stacked container wagons have a net/tare ratio greater than 1.0, unlike trailers on flatcars or single stacked containers which have a net/tare ratio less than 1.0. The net/tare ratio compares how much revenue weight is carried per ton of dead weight railcar. This saves fuel and allows more containers to be carried for a given train length, which allows railroads to be more competitive with trucks.
- Terminal costs and size are highly dependent on track length. A terminal generally must be able to hold an entire train at a time. So stacking the containers two high on the rail cars allows the handling of more containers per foot of track in a terminal thus allowing terminals to handle greater volumes of container traffic in a given footprint. Handling containers vs. trailers is also somewhat more efficient, as containers can be stacked in the holding areas and trailers cannot.
