Norfolk Southern and CMA CGM earlier this month launched an intermodal service between the Midwest and West Coast “designed to look and feel like a truck move,” a Norfolk Southern spokesperson told Supply Chain Dive.
Managed by Norfolk Southern’s Triple Crown Services unit, the service uses 40-foot high-cube containers and a door-to-door operating model to reduce complexity for brokers and shippers and better streamline a modal shift from long-haul highway freight to rail, the spokesperson said.
“CMA CGM’s 40‑foot ocean containers are used for the full journey - moving inland by rail and then returning loaded to port - while Triple Crown manages the end‑to‑end execution and accountability,” they said.
The goal is to make CMA CGM container capacity available in existing Norfolk Southern lanes. Currently, the service is offered for freight from Cleveland and Detroit to Los Angeles, and Columbus, Ohio, to Seattle, per the spokesperson.
“The beauty of Norfolk Southern's offerings via Triple Crown Services, Inc. is that we can customize and flex these capabilities for a variety of customers who are interested in establishing a more streamlined way to operate and reach markets,” the spokesperson said.
Available capacity for the service is posted on Norfolk Southern’s Modal-X platform — the railroad’s web-based transactional pricing platform for door-to-door services across the North America rail network, the spokesperson said.
Norfolk Southern aims to work with partners to optimize the use of its intermodal network and offer better and more flexible supply chain solutions, per the spokesperson. The railroad also worked with BNSF Railway in 2025 to redesign an inland point intermodal service between the Northwest Seaport Alliance and Chicago.
Meanwhile, Norfolk Southern is also in the process of merging with Union Pacific, which would form the first transcontinental railroad in the U.S. However, the plan has since been delayed after the Surface Transportation Board in January rejected the merger application initially filed in December. The application is set to be refiled in April, Union Pacific CEO and Director Jim Vena said at a conference earlier this month.
