PSR on Norfolk Southern’s Premier Corridor in Northern Indiana

Several years ago Norfolk Southern began referring to its line to Chicago from northern New Jersey, Philadelphia and Baltimore as the Premier Corridor – the busiest line for freight traffic in the eastern half of the United States and the most important freight corridor on the entire NS system. And this includes their former New York Central Chicago Line from Cleveland to Chicago. This video shows the trains and operations on NS’s Chicago Line in northern Indiana, east of Elkhart, for over thirty-six hours in October of 2019. Norfolk Southern recently implemented their version of precision scheduled railroading called their Top-21 plan system-wide on their manifest trains.

PSR (Precision Scheduled Railroading) on NS’s Premier Corridor has resulted in fewer but longer trains and the first regular use of distributed power in over thirty-five years on this line. In June of 1999 the face of railroading in the East changed overnight when Conrail divided up it’s huge system and CSX and Norfolk Southern split the trackage.

It has now been over twenty years and NS has greatly increased their share of intermodal traffic between the East Coast and Chicago versus CSX. This program shows that growth and the effect of PSR on NS’s Premier Corridor since our last look at NS’s Chicago line east of Toledo in 2014. And, in addition to Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited and Capital Limited, Canadian Pacific’s trains between Chicago and Detroit also utilize this busy and at times congested line between Butler and Chicago.