NORFOLK Norfolk Southern Corp. projects the cost of putting conventional passenger rail on its freight tracks between Petersburg and Norfolk at $75 million, far less than the state's estimate. State estimates released in July show that slightly faster trains, 90-110 mph versus 79 mph, in the same corridor would cost $262 million.

NORFOLK A day after Norfolk Southern Corp. reported that its second-quarter profit dropped 45 percent from a year ago, its top executives told Wall Street analysts in a teleconference Wednesday that the company is continuing to cut costs wherever possible and improve efficiencies while waiting for the economy to turn around.

NORFOLK Norfolk Southern Corp. on Tuesday reported that its profit for the April-to-June quarter dropped 45 percent from the same quarter a year ago.

WHARNCLIFFE, W.Va. Four people were hurt, including one who suffered serious injuries, when a Norfolk Southern Corp. freight train derailed and struck a loading facility at a coal preparation plant in southern West Virginia on Tuesday, a spokesman for the railroad said.

Norfolk Southern announced Thursday that it will build a new intermodal terminal in Rossville, Tenn., near Memphis, as part of the railroad's Crescent Corridor initiative. The $129 million facility is expected to open in January 2012.

The Memphis regional intermodal facility will have the capacity to handle more than 327,000 containers and trailers annually.

Norfolk Southern Corp. named David F. Julian vice president safety and environmental, effective Wednesday. The Norfolk-based railroad's safety and environmental department is responsible for employee safety training and awareness, grade crossing safety and trespassing abatement programs, and environmental protection.

NORFOLK For the 20th year in a row, Norfolk Southern Corp. took top honors in an annual competition recognizing safety achievements by the nation's railroads. Among the biggest U.S. railroads, the Norfolk-based company again won the gold medal in the E.H. Harriman Awards with the best safety record in 2008. CSX Transportation took silver, and Union Pacific Railroad the bronze.

NORFOLK Arnold B. McKinnon, a former chairman and CEO of Norfolk Southern Corp., died of heart failure Monday in Bethesda, Md. The Norfolk resident was 81. A railroader for more than 40 years, McKinnon led Norfolk Southern from 1987 to 1992. After he retired as CEO, he was a member of the Norfolk-based railroad company's board of directors until 2000.

WILLIAMSON, W.Va.  With railroad traffic slowed by the ailing economy, Virginia-based Norfolk Southern Corp. has laid off 13 employees at its rail yard in Williamson.

Spokesman Robin Chapman said today that the workers will be indefinitely furloughed starting at the end of the month.

NORFOLK The morning after Norfolk Southern Corp. said its first-quarter profit fell 39 percent, company executives said the railroad hasn't faced an economic slowdown like this in any of their memories. "The word 'unprecedented' is used a lot these days, with good cause," Wick Moorman, the company's chairman and CEO, told industry analysts in a teleconference Wednesday.