NORFOLK, Va. — Norfolk Southern’s planned Birmingham Regional Intermodal Facility was awarded $52.5 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) Program.
In July 2009, Norfolk Southern announced that it intended to construct a new intermodal terminal in McCalla, Ala., adjacent to the Jefferson Metropolitan Park at McCalla, as part of the railroad’s multi-state $2.5 billion Crescent Corridor program of projects to establish a high-speed intermodal freight rail route linking the Gulf Coast and the Northeast.
“Because of its strategic location and the growing intermodal demands in the Southeast, the Birmingham Regional Intermodal Facility will create jobs, eliminate long-haul trucks from highways, and create economic development opportunities in Jefferson County as well as in the surrounding six counties,” said Norfolk Southern CEO Wick Moorman.
The Crescent Corridor is an existing 2,500-mile rail network through 13 states from Louisiana to New Jersey that touches 26 percent of the nation’s population and 30 percent of the nation’s manufacturing output. When fully operational it will handle more rail freight traffic faster and more reliably, creating or benefiting some 73,000 green jobs by 2030
