NS celebrates 50 years of world-class service to global coal market with Pier 6

[NW Mailing List]

NS and FCA Roanoke also have produced a coal car to commemorate the occasion. Co. photog. Casey Thomason took the image at FCA Roanoke.  The car is a re-bodied car and appears to be a former Conrail H2C class car, based on the current HP30R class.
 
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/451739
 
Oh Mr. Shell.... We need some more decals....
 
Regards,
Russ Goodwin
Buford, GA
 
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 23:12:07 -0400
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Subject: NS celebrates 50 years of world-class service to global coal	market with Pier 6
From: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org



September 18, 2013

 


Norfolk Southern celebrates 50 years of world-class service to global
coal market with Pier 6

 

NORFOLK, VA. – Norfolk Southern today commemorated the fiftieth
anniversary of the original dedication of Pier 6, its coal transloading
facility in Norfolk, with a ceremony at Lamberts Point, where the
railroad has been transferring coal directly from rail cars to ships for
export for 130 years.

 

Pier 6 was completed in July 1963 and formally dedicated Sept. 18 that
year. It was designed and built primarily to load ships bound for steel
mills around the world with high-quality, metallurgical coal from the
central Appalachian coal fields. It was then, and remains today, the
largest and fastest coal transloading facility in the Northern Hemisphere
and continues to dominate the U.S. export coal market.

 

Today’s ceremony included remarks by Superintendent of Terminals Jeff
Yates, retired Senior Vice President-International Bill Bales, retired
Senior Piermaster Bob Welch, T. Parker Host CEO David Host, Norfolk Mayor
Paul Fraim, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, and Norfolk Southern CEO
Wick Moorman.

 

“Pier 6 was an engineering marvel 50 years ago, and it still is today,”
Moorman said. “No facility in the world provides the level and quality of
service to the global metallurgical and thermal coal markets that Pier 6
does. We have every expectation that it will continue to fill that very
large niche for decades to come.”

 

Pier 6 is unique in its ability to blend coal from different sources to
precise formulas as it is being loaded onto ships. It achieves this by
dumping coal directly from rail cars into a conveyor system that feeds
directly into ships’ holds, in contrast to other facilities that store
coal on the ground rather than in rail cars. This is a valuable service
to receivers of metallurgical coal, who have exacting blend requirements
and can receive the coal ready to use off the ship. Pier 6 also serves
the thermal coal market.

 


Pier 6 was built at a cost of $25 million ($190 million in 2013 dollars).
In the last five years, Norfolk Southern has invested more than $43
million to maintain and upgrade track and facilities at Lamberts Point,
reflecting the company’s confidence that, even given the challenges
facing coal today, the global market will continue to require world-class
service into the foreseeable future.

 

Fast Facts about Pier 6

·         Coal operations at
Lamberts Point cover 400 acres.

·         The entire facility can
hold about 6,500 railcars on 150 miles of track.

·         It is the largest coal
loading facility in the Northern Hemisphere, with a throughput capacity
of 36 million tons annually.

·         It takes an average of
24 hours to load one ship for a typical load of 80,000 tons.

·         With both dumpers and
both shiploaders operating, Pier 6 can handle up to 8,000 tons an
hour.

·         Each shiploader weighs
2,400 tons and rolls on 96 rail wheels. They are among the largest pieces
of moving machinery in the world.

·         The pier is 1,850 feet
long.

·         The shiploaders rise
182 feet above the water.

·         Lamberts Point,
including the 38th Street Car Shop, employs about 450 people.

·         In January 2012, Pier 6
loaded a record 159,941.45 net tons (145,097.931 metric tons) of
metallurgical coal into the M/V Cape Dover, destined for China. Loading
was completed in less than 48 hours.

·         Since 1883, more than
1.2 billion tons of coal have been loaded onto vessels at Lamberts Point.
This would fill a train stretching almost half way to the moon.

 

Norfolk
Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC) is one of the nation’s premier
transportation companies. Its Norfolk Southern Railway Company subsidiary
operates approximately 20,000
route miles
in 22 states and the District of Columbia, serves every major container
port in the eastern United States, and provides efficient connections to
other rail carriers. Norfolk Southern operates the most extensive
intermodal network in the East and is a major transporter of coal,
automotive, and industrial products.

###






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