Governor Wes Moore yesterday commended the launch of double-stacked rail operations to and from the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore. Part of the Howard Street Tunnel Project, the significant milestone is critical to making Maryland more competitive, opening new opportunities for intermodal rail service in the Northeast and from the Port of Baltimore to Midwest markets, generating thousands of new jobs, and delivering critical benefits to the region months earlier than expected.

In addition to enhanced transport cost efficiency and enhanced environmental benefits, double-stacking containers will help the Port grow its business by about 160,000 containers annually and will create 13,000 new jobs in construction and in operations. Double-stacking will also complement the expansion of the Seagirt Marine Terminal, operated by Ports America Chesapeake, as home to supersized Neo-Panamax cranes that handle ultra-large container ships.

While construction is still ongoing at several Maryland sites, vertical clearance improvements at rail bridges north of Baltimore are complete, providing CSX the opportunity to operate double-stack rail service on a temporary route from the Port along the CSX network in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and onto the Midwest until the work is complete in 2026.

The Howard Street Tunnel Project includes reconstructing the 129-year-old tunnel in Baltimore and 21 other locations in Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania to increase vertical clearance by 18 inches to allow double-stacked container trains to and from the Port of Baltimore. When fully complete, the double-stack project will provide the East Coast with seamless double-stack capacity from Maine to Florida.

-via Press Release