NS facilitated $4.2 billion in industrial investment in 2015

Norfolk Southern Corp. assisted 93 facilities in locating or expanding business along its rail lines in 2015, resulting in an investment of $4.2 billion by NS customers, the Class I announced yesterday.

The customers' investments are expected to generate more than 85,000 carloads of new rail traffic annually, NS officials said in a press release.

"While the energy sector has been severely impacted by the drop in commodity prices, this sector — including alternative energy production — still accounted for nearly 20 percent of the projects that started operations this year," said Jason Reiner, assistant vice president industrial development.

"However, the largest impact to our communities was the strong showing in manufacturing, accounting for $3.7 billion in new investment and 5,600 new jobs."

Automotive industry growth was the largest contributor to the strong showing in manufacturing, Reiner said.

"We expect to see continued growth in manufacturing in 2016 as projects currently in development begin full operation," he added.

During the past decade, NS' Industrial Development Department has assisted the location or expansion of 989 facilities representing an investment of nearly $60 billion, which helped create more than 42,000 new customer jobs in territory served by the railroad, NS officials said.