Frograil Rail Tours

Introduction

There are three intermodal terminals in Tidewater Virginia, in Hampton Roads/the Port of Norfolk. These are where containers are exchanged between between ships and trucks and trains. The Heartland Cooridor project on Norfolk Southern and the National Gateway project on CSX are designed to improve clearances to move doublestacked container trains between the Midwest and the port at Norfolk. The Heartland Cooridor project was completed in 2010 and the National Gateway project was still under construction in early 2011.

Grady McKinley, who created the CSX Portsmouth Subdivision tour, provides this information.

PMT (Portsmouth Marine Terminal)

This is located in Portsmouth, right where the Midtown Tunnel goes from Portsmouth to Norfolk. It was one of the main ports in Virginia until the opening of the Maresk (APM) Facility (also in Portsmouth). If you look on Bing Maps it's easily located across the River from "West Norfolk" and it's labeled as "CSX Portsmouth." With the recent shift by the Virginia Port Authority (VPA) all ships are now off-loading at NIT or the new Maersk/APM Facility. Containers are still being trucked over to the CSX yard at Portsmouth Marine Terminal for loading onto CSX trains Q135, Q136 bound for the Midwest. CSX usually runs a train in each direction to this Terminal and the facility is adjacent to a public road. To drive by PMT, you can do so by driving on "Harper Ave." If you are driving on the Western Freeway (VA-164) you can exit for Industrial Ave, Railroad Ave. Take an immediate left on Cleveland and an immediate right on Lee Street. Cross the tracks and take a left on Harper Ave. You will parallel the tracks for roughly 1 mile (about 3-4 tracks here) for the PMT Terminal.

NIT (Norfolk International Terminals)

This is the main cargo terminal in Norfolk, VA. Pretty much every double-stack train NS runs from Norfolk originates at NIT (22A, 233, 227) and where the east-bounds go for export (228, 234, 23G, 236 etc...) Its very easy to locate on a Bing Map. It's just south of the Norfolk Naval Station and north of Lambert's Point, and basically just south of the site of the former Virginian Coal Piers at Sewells Point. The kicker here is that all of the actual terminal site is virtually off-limits. You can, however, get views of the trains leaving and arriving at a few locations. Hampton Blvd. (VA-337) is the best access. Pass Old Dominion University and the Lafayette River and you will soon come up on the Front Gate at NIT. Take a right onto Terminal Blvd and it will follow the tracks towards "QM" Junction" This is the junction with the line to the Back Gate @ NIT. Quite often there are double-stacks sitting on the sidings here waiting to be worked or sent west. To pass by the back gate, you can stay on Hampton Blvd past the front gate of NIT (which is off to your right) and it will cross the tracks near the back gate. You don't actually pass through any gates on the main road (Hampton Blvd) but you can see where they enter the Terminals. All of this trackage is former Virginian Railway.

APM Terminals

The APM Terminal is the same terminal as the Maersk Terminal. APM was the official company name of the parent company of Maersk. APM built the new facility in Portsmouth (located just north of "West Norfolk" near where Coast Guard Blvd ended on a piece of property known as the "Cox Property." Commonwealth Railway serves this facility via its line from Suffolk to Portsmouth (West Norfolk). This was the extreme eastern end of the original Norfolk, Franklin & Danville mainline. The original alignment traveled through various residential neighborhoods in both Chesapeake and Portsmouth before reaching the BASF chemical plant (former Virginia Chemicals plant). Only a small portion of the plant is in use now, by U.S. Amines Corp. In 2010, the Commonwealth of Virginia helped with funding to move the line from its original alignment into the median of I-664 and VA-164 to reach the terminal. A connection track now links the last 2 miles of the original alignment to service the chemical plant. You can view the entire project here (http://www.vpa-engineering.net/rail_project/). The Terminal can be easily viewed while driving on VA-164 (Western Freeway) and also by driving on Coast Guard Blvd. You can drive down Coast Guard Blvd. and turn around before getting to the Main Gate without any problems as the road is public property. Views of the arriving/departing Commonwealth trains can be had here as well as from any of the main overpasses (Cedar Lane, Towne Point Road) where the track is in the median of VA-164 (there are sidewalks for public use on both sides of these bridges).