US$842 million east coast rail upgrade keyed to Panama expansion

AMERICAN railway giant CSX Transportation plans to accelerate work to clear tracks for double-stacked container trains to run between east coast ports and the Midwest, reports The State Journal, of Charleston, West Virginia.

The upgrade will enable double stacked container trains to travel from North Carolina through Virginia and Maryland, across West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle and then into Pennsylvania and Ohio.

"Our goal is to have most of the work done by the end of 2012. We're really looking at 2015 when the expansion of the Panama Canal is to be done," said CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan.

CSX has undertaken what it calls the National Gateway project - an US$842 million public-private upgrade of rail infrastructure to accommodate double-stack container cars.

The plan calls for the double stacking of containers, increasing a train's capacity from 280 to 400 FEU. But the rail line's tunnels and bridges aren't big enough; so 60 tunnels and bridges must be enlarged or eliminated.

"One train can carry the load of more than 280 trucks, clearing space for over 1,100 cars," Mr Sullivan said. "The National Gateway will shift more than 300 million freight truck miles from West Virginia's highways to rail. Any effort to shift freight from highways to railways greatly improves safety, the environment and traffic."

CSX 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.
 

Source: SchedNet