The Crescent Corridor is a railroad corridor expansion program that will be operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS). The line, proposed by NS in 2007, will run along Interstate 81. It will be a major intermodal corridor running between Louisiana and New Jersey.[1]
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NS plans for the project to expand its entire network from the Northeast to the Southeast U.S. It is expected that the majority of cargo along the corridor would be intermodal. The improvements are projected to remove over hundreds of thousands of truckloads from the interstate highways. This would reduce traffic congestion and help the environment by removing trucks from long-haul transport.
The corridor is 1,400 miles (2,300 km) long and 28 new trains daily would be expected to go into service along with improvements to rail yards along the corridor. NS has proposed sharing the costs with federal and state agencies in a public-private partnership. The overall project cost estimate is $2.5 billion as of 2009.[2] NS plans to expand and upgrade existing rail lines along the corridor to accommodate fast freight trains and also purchase new locomotives and freight cars, and build new terminals.
Construction on the project began in northern Virginia in 2008. The Charlotte terminal is under construction, and the entire corridor is expected to be completed by 2013.[3]
