NORFOLK, Va. – Norfolk Southern Corporation participated in the location of 93 new industries and provided support for the expansion of 33 additional industries along its rail lines in 2002.
The new plants and expansions represent an investment of $3.9 billion by Norfolk Southern’s customers. They are expected to create more than 4,700 jobs on the railroad’s territory and generate more than 91,100 carloads of new rail traffic annually.
The industrial development projects include facilities involved in the handling of automobiles, plastics and agricultural and food products.
“New and expanding businesses on the Norfolk Southern network increased 16 percent over 2001, despite challenging economic conditions for our customers and communities,” said Larry Collingwood, assistant vice president industrial development.
The largest projects are in the automotive sector. General Motors and Mitsubishi expanded auto assembly plants at Moraine, Ohio, and Normal, Ill., and Southeast Toyota Distributors opened a new auto processing and distribution facility in Jacksonville, Fla. Norfolk Southern will serve additional auto assembly plants under construction by Toyota at Princeton, Ind., Mercedes-Benz at Vance, Ala., and Honda in Lincoln, Ala. All are scheduled for completion in 2003 and 2004.
NS continued its success in the plastics and food-related product divisions, helping to develop 11 and 17 location projects respectively, including the Aero Plastics Inc. consumer products plant in McDonough, Ga.; the Wenger Feed mill in Shippensburg, Pa.; and the Owens-Brockway Plastic Products Inc. bottle manufacturing plant in Altavista, Va.
Several projects benefited from Norfolk Southern’s MODALGISTICS® business unit that provides transportation, distribution and logistics services.
“Customers turn to Norfolk Southern for service solutions from locations to logistics because they can count on us to provide expert analysis and economical and efficient transportation across all modes,” Collingwood said. “They know we are here for the long haul.”
During the past 10 years, Norfolk Southern has participated in the location or expansion of 1,143 industries, which invested $24.1 billion and created more than 58,000 jobs in the territory served by the railroad.
Norfolk Southern works with state and local economic development authorities on projects involving site location and development of infrastructure to connect customers to its rail system and provides free and confidential plant location services, including site layout, engineering and logistics assistance. Offices are located in Atlanta; Binghamton, N.Y.; Birmingham, Ala.; Columbia, S.C.; Columbus, Ohio; Detroit; Harrisburg, Pa.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Nashville, Tenn.; Norfolk and Roanoke, Va.; Philadelphia; Raleigh, N.C.; and St. Louis.
