NORFOLK SOUTHERN SAYS NEW OPERATING PLAN WILL BOOST SERVICES

NORFOLK SOUTHERN SAYS NEW OPERATING PLAN WILL BOOST SERVICES    Norfolk Southern Railway Co. said it has implemented a new scheduled operating plan for its merchandise freight service network that will boost service consistency and reliability.
   The Thoroughbred Operating Plan (TOP) aims to optimize the way the eastern U.S. railroad builds trains and operates its rail network. The plan uses 250 new train schedules and routings for shipments of chemicals, agricultural and consumer goods, paper and forest products, metals and construction materials and vehicles and vehicle parts. The new plan reduces ore eliminates handlings at NS's 13 major classification yards and more than 200 regional and local yards.
   Norfolk Southern's goal is to improve on-time performance, reduce car handling, shorten routes, accelerate train speeds and boost asset utilization. Some 75 percent of the railroad's merchandise customers should see improved transit times, NS said. Most improvements will be within 10 to 30 percent, while others will see even greater reductions, the railroad added.
   The plan is the result of a year-long analysis of NS's train operations by its transportation, marketing and information technology personnel. NS studied 2.8 million carloads of traffic over a three-month period to see how traffic varied from day to day, then rebuilt ever merchandise traffic pattern on the railroad.
   Concurrent with the plan, Norfolk Southern has launched a number of electronic commerce initiatives, including enhancing the railroad's price inquiry application to allow customers to request new pricing information more quickly. Future plans include a new Web-based application that will provide estimated transit times based on TOP train service schedules, and estimated arrival times on active shipments added to all shipment tracking applications.
   Norfolk Southern Railway, a unit of Norfolk, Va.-based holding company Norfolk Southern Corp., operates 21,500 route miles in 22 states, the District of Columbia and Ontario, Canada.