Curtis Bay Piers is strategically located on the CSX network and the Chesapeake Bay. It primarily handles coal from the Northern Appalachian coal region (NAPP), but has also successfully handled coal from other regions as well, including Central Appalachian (CAPP), Illinois Basin (ILB), Southern Appalachian (SAPP), Colorado and Powder River Basins (PRB).

The Curtis Bay Terminal in Baltimore, Maryland is one of the most efficient ports on the east coast, and offers:

• Reliable supply of empty trains
• Safe, efficient railroad operations
• High-quality rail car fleet
• Competitive pricing
• Advanced information and scheduling tools
• Expert service and coordination between trains, ground storage and vessels

CSX has invested over $60 million in Curtis Bay Piers over the last five years, setting new standards in environmental stewardship and providing improved throughput capacity, efficiency, and flexibility. An unconstrained and independent triple dumper configuration improves production at Curtis Bay as the focus has changed from storing coal to “just-in-time” transition of coal into the water vessels. Depending on the cargo volume size, coal quality and origination point, a large percentage of coal can go directly from the rail car to an ocean-going vessel or coastal barge, eliminating the need to store coal on the ground for any significant length of time.

The facility has a rated and demonstrated capacity of 14 million tons of coal throughput annually with room to grow. The recent major capital improvements included:

• Installing long tracks that act as sidings between the yard and pier to avoid having to break trains into several cuts of cars for moving and dumping.
• Adding indexing car positioners to dumpers #2 and #3, which automatically advance the rail cars and place them on the dumper freeing up the line of road locomotives for moving empty trains back to the coal fields.
• Re-decking the B&O pier so machinery works more efficiently, and as a bonus, catches rainwater for use in the dust suppression environmental systems.
• Adding the third radius track from dumper #1 to the bottom yard which eliminates any conflict between cars existing dumper #1 and #2 at the same time.