RADFORD, Va. —
Norfolk Southern officials will join with state and federal officials next week to officially open the Heartland Corridor, one of the most ambitious railway engineering projects of the last century, according to an NS press release.
Wick Moorman, chief executive officer of NS, Joseph Szabo, administrator, Federal Railroad Administration and Sean Connaughton, Virginia Secretary of Transportation, will all be part of a program at 11 a.m., on Thursday, Sept. 9, at the Cowan Tunnel, at 3,302 feet, the longest of the 28 tunnels on the corridor that were altered by lowering or raising the roof to make way for double-decked intermodal freight traffic.
“One of my colleagues who works with domestic and international accounts said our customers around the world are excited about this project,” Susan Terpay, NS spokesperson said. “The improvement is going to be amazing. Moving freight from the port of Virginia to, say Chicago, in just 43 hours, it’s going to be an amazing savings in terms of time and the days you make up in shipping.
“When customers ask me how we’re going to shave that much time off, I tell them that we’ll do it by shipping through West Virginia,” Terpay. “When they ask: ‘West Virginia?’ I say that we’ve been shipping our coal through there for a long time.”
The first double-stacked train will roll through the Cowan Tunnel after the ceremony. Terpay said in addition to cutting down the shipping times, the Heartland Corridor will reduce highway congestion, fuel use and improve safety.
“This is a West Virginia story,” Terpay said. “A big West Virginia story. Twenty-five of the 28 tunnels that we enlarged are in West Virginia. It was a major engineering feat to stop trains moving on the main line for four and sometimes five days a week.”
Terpay said there will be another ceremony in Prichard, but not at the same time as the event in Radford.
- — Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com
