IMF Overview

What is an IMF and Why is it Needed?

Intermodal facilities (IMF) play a key role in the national transportation system. Intermodal Terminals are used to efficiently transfer freight, which is used at retail stores and businesses, throughout the country. Trucks move the freight for short distances and trains move it for long distances. Normally trucks carry only one or two containers. Container carrying trains typically carry more than a hundred containers.

At the IMF, shipping containers are transferred between trucks and rail cars via specially designed container lift machines and “hostler” trucks. A container lift machine is a rubber tired gantry crane that lifts the containers and transfers them to and from the rail cars and the parking pads and to and from the trucks. Hostlers are small trucks with single cabs that move and stage containers throughout the IMF facilitating a highly efficient pickup and delivery process. The movement and staging of containers around the site occurs through a very efficient centralized dispatching and routing process, which significantly reduces the visit time of vehicles visiting the site. The average time that a delivery truck will be on site is less than 25 minutes.

An IMF is the safest, most efficient and most economical way to move freight. Norfolk Southern is enhancing its existing rail lines to enable it to provide truck competitive service. The operation of the IMF is estimated to result in the removal of more than 69,000 trucks from highways between the Birmingham IMF and the northeast annually.

Toxic inhalant materials are prohibited at IMFs. Examples of the types of items that may be transferred at the IMF include the following:
• Electronics
• Mail
• Toys
• Paper products
• Clothes
• Appliances
• Textiles
• Auto parts

The Birmingham IMF is scheduled to open in 2012. The estimated cost of developing the IMF is $112 million.
Six intermodal trains will serve the facility each day. Of these, four will be on site working trains while one will originate at the IMF and one will terminate at the facility. Four of these trains already are going by the area on the main rail line. A maximum of 46 trucks will visit the facility in an hour with an average of 407 trucks transferring containers per day. Overall, the IMF will have capacity to handle 165,000 truck trailers and shipping containers each year.

Freight rail has been an important part of the Birmingham regional economy and transportation infrastructure for more than a century. The Birmingham IMF will be part of a 2,500-mile railway that will link key markets in the Southeast and Northeast and that will connect the Birmingham area to international ports and the global economy. IMFs, such as the one to be constructed in McCalla, are proven to bring significant economic growth and thousands of jobs to the region. IMFs are highly effective in preserving federal and state highway infrastructure, reducing highway maintenance costs, and improving safety for motorists by removing trucks from the roadways and reducing air emissions associated with freight movement across the country.