County Sues Va. Over NS Hub

John D. Boyd Associate Editor Just as promised, Virginia's Montgomery County filed suit against state plans to fund a Norfolk Southern Railway intermodal transfer facility, which is part of the carrier's multi-state Heartland Corridor construction project. The county is asking a state court to rule that spending public money on a privately owned intermodal terminal violates Virginia's constitution. But it was Virginia's site choice that triggered the complaint, after state authorities cleared NS to start building the facility at the rural village of Elliston, near Roanoke. The county's board of supervisors had passed resolutions against putting the terminal there, arguing it would disrupt the area's pastoral lifestyle and not be in accord with county development plans. So the local officials vowed to fight the plan. The suit, though, focuses on what Montgomery County says is more than $31 million the state would spend for rail improvements that would then be owned by the railroad. That would include a road link Virginia aims to connect the new terminal to the adjacent Interstate 81, a major north-south highway some truckers use instead of the often congested I-95. "We believe the public funding of private railroads is prohibited by the Virginia Constitution," said Board Chairman Annette Perkins. The NS corridor project is revamping 28 Appalachian rail tunnels along what is now largely mixed-cargo lines, raising their clearances so doublestack intermodal trains can use a much more direct route between Norfolk, Va., area ocean ports and the large consumer centers at Columbus, Ohio, and Chicago. The Heartland Corridor, due to start operations early in 2010, will also have three intermodal terminals. One opened this spring at Columbus, another is being built by West Virginia at the town of Prichard, and Elliston would be the third. That Roanoke-area terminal serving mostly east-west box traffic would also be located on another route that NS hopes to develop with federal and state funds. Dubbed the Crescent Corridor, that project envisions a faster north-south intermodal route from New Orleans up through the Southeast and into the Northeast.