Via the Charleston Daily Mail:

A $150 million plan to let trains stack cargo containers two high in Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia is expected to ease highway congestion and speed movement of goods between Virginia’s ports and Chicago.

Some communities will have to raise the height of overpasses and mountain tunnels to accommodate the taller cargo.

The double-stacked container cars used on many other rail lines are more than a foot taller than the clearance heights of 28 tunnels and more than 20 other overhead obstructions along the more than 100-year-old route across Appalachia.

This sounds like good news to me, especially considering that all the parties involved – Federal Highway Administration, Norfolk Southern Railway, states of Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio - have agreed to share the cost of the work.

Government and industry leaders say that stacking a second 10-foot container on flatbed rail cars will cut at least a day off shipment times between Chicago and the Port of Virginia. Shippers save money by moving inventory more quickly and communities along the railway are expected to have better access to international markets.

Currently, Norfolk Southern’s double-stack traffic between the port and Chicago must go 1,342 miles on a different rail line through Knoxville, Tenn.; Lexington, Ky.; and Cincinnati, or 1,264 miles through Harrisburg, Pa.; Pittsburgh and Cleveland. By contrast, the Heartland Corridor takes a more direct, 1,031-mile route through fewer big cities that require slower speeds.

“We’ll need more capacity to handle the growth in international trade, and this will allow more consistent service and more capacity for that traffic,” Norfolk Southern spokeswoman Robin Chapman said.

Even better, additional money has been set aside to develop intermodal terminals along the route, which will provide inland communities greater access to the global market:

In addition, $100 million has been dedicated to building shipping terminals along the route at Roanoke, Va.; Prichard, W.Va.; and at a military base south of Columbus, Ohio. The facilities are expected to help hard-to-reach Appalachian Mountain communities get better access to lucrative international trade.

We talked about the development of Columbus’ intermodal terminal at Rickenbacker Airport earlier this week.

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