Railroad News

Norfolk Southern Railway is expanding its conductor trainee incentive program to Bellevue, Ohio; Elkhart, Indiana; and Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The program includes starting bonuses of $5,000.

Norfolk Southern Railway yesterday announced a partnership with Commtrex to increase access to and visibility of transload facilities on the Class I’s network.

Shippers using the network will be able to use Commtrex’s database to search among the 32 rail-served transload facilities by location, commodities handled and other parameters, NS officials said in a press release. That will help shippers connect to every major container port in the eastern United States, they added.

Norfolk Southern Corp. has donated the complete collection of historical documents and archives from predecessor company Norfolk and Western Railway to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, the company announced today.

The collection dates back to the 1840s and includes thousands of photographs and glass plate negatives, as well as business records, annual reports, blueprints, plans, bridge drawings, advertisements, portraits and three-dimensional artifacts from predecessor railroads that together provide a look into the growth of rail transportation across the eastern United States.

Norfolk Southern Railway recently received the Responsible Care Energy Efficiency Award for Locomotive Fuel Efficiency from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and the 2022 Green Bond of the Year Award from Environmental Finance for a number of sustainability achievements.

The ACC award recognizes member companies for initiatives that improve energy usage. The council honored NS’ locomotive fuel efficiency program with an exceptional merit designation.

Norfolk Southern Railway today announced the launch of a next-generation carbon calculator for customers to measure carbon emissions in their supply chain decisions.

The calculator enhances the accuracy of carbon estimates by capturing the entire cycle of fuel usage, NS officials said in a press release. Direct fuel consumption from locomotives is applied to every rail car based on weight and distance traveled, and additional fuel accounted for includes yard and local operations, equipment repositioning and fuel expended while handling containers in intermodal operations. The tool generates a rail fuel efficiency factor for 18 rail-car types and 30 commodities.

In the wake of recent record demand, Norfolk Southern Railway is making several changes and upgrades at its Landers intermodal terminal in Chicago, the Class I announced in a customer advisory.

To increase capacity, NS has reconfigured its footprint to boost stacked container capacity by 60%. Reach-stackers — with three in service and three more coming — are being added to increase lift capacity by 40% an hour and reduce driver dwell for pickups, the NS advisory stated.

Norfolk Southern Corp. shareholders yesterday elected 13 directors for one-year terms expiring in 2022.

The following individuals were elected to the board, according to preliminary results: Thomas Bell Jr., Mitchell Daniels Jr., Marcela Donadio, John Huffard Jr., Christopher Jones, Thomas Kelleher, Steven Leer, Michael Lockhart, Amy Miles, Claude Mongeau, Jennifer Scanlon, James Squires and John Thompson.

Norfolk Southern Corp. yesterday closed a $500 million green-bond offering to fund investments to reduce the company’s carbon emissions and help customers reduce their supply-chain emissions.

NS is the first Class I in North America to issue green bonds, according to the railroad.