Norfolk Southern Railway - Track Network and Facilities

Track Network and Facilities

Largely an eastern United States railway, NS directly owns and operates 21,300 miles of track in 22 states: Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. In addition, Norfolk Southern owns track in Washington D.C. and the Canadian province of Ontario. It operates three primary hubs in its system, in Harrisburg, Chicago and Atlanta.

Furthermore, NS has rights to operate its trains with its own crews on competing railroads' tracks. These trackage rights permit NS to operate as far west as Dallas, Texas, as far north as Waterville, Maine, and as far south as Miami, Florida. NS locomotives also occasionally operate on competitors' tracks throughout the United States and Canada due to the practice of locomotive leasing and sharing undertaken by the Class I railroads.

Not including second, third and fourth main line trackage, yard trackage, and siding trackage, NS directly operates some 21,500 miles (34,601 kilometers) of track. When the additional tracks are counted, however, the amount of track NS has direct control over rises to over 38,000 miles (61,155 kilometers).

The company has several major rail classification yards, located in:

Norfolk Southern has many intermodal classification yards. They are:

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Eight major locomotive shops are located in:

NS also shares interest with CSX in the Conrail Oak Island classification yard and complex in Newark, New Jersey.

Within Ontario NS uses the rail network owned by Canadian National Railway. It operates trains to the Ford Motor Company's St. Thomas Assembly plant in St. Thomas, Ontario.