BETWEEN FOOTHILLS AND COTTON FIELDS, HUNTSVILLE'S INTERNATIONAL PORT

This article describes the Huntsville-Madison County International Airport and Intermodal Center, which occupies over 3,000 acres. Its two parallel 8,000-foot-long runways, separated by nearly a mile, enable two 747s to land simultaneously under instrument conditions. There is even room for the Army's C5A cargo plane, the biggest plane in the world, to land. An air cargo apron has room for five wide-bodied jets to park side by side and unload simultaneously. One hundred yards from the air cargo apron is the International Intermodal Center. Running beneath an enormous rail-mounted gantry crane are 4,800 feet of railroad track in four parallel 1,200-foot-long sections that connect to the Norfolk Southern rail system two and a half miles away. A $250,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission allowed the rail connection to be made. In the terminal building are U.S. Customs agents, private customs house brokers and a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector. And still within the airport's 3,000 acres is an industrial park and free trade zone that is now home to many corporate giants. It is a grouping of transportation and industry unique in the United States. The intermodal terminal handles two kinds of traffic: container on flat car and trailer on flat car. When cargo arrives by truck at the terminal's gate it encounters the first of a series of innovations. In a system like a drive-through bank teller, the trucker talks with a traffic manager by closed circuit television, his paper work is whooshed to the office by pneumatic tube and seven TV cameras inspect the container or trailer for structural problems. Once inside the terminal the trucker parks his rig in a 12-foot-wide parking space perpendicular to the railroad tracks. The huge gantry crane can pick up the trailers and containers and rotate them 90 degrees. The crane can perform up to 17 lifts an hour. Economically, the Huntsville-Madison County International Airport and Intermodal Center has without doubt been a huge success.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00036595
• Corporate Authors:

  Appalachian Regional Commission

  1666 Connecticut Avenue, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20235
• Authors:
  • Hoffman, C
• Publication Date: 1988

Media Info

• Features: Photos;
• Pagination: p. 5-11
• Serial:
  • Appalachia
  • Volume: 21
  • Issue Number: 3
  • Publisher: Appalachian Regional Commission
  • ISSN: 0003-6595

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Airports; Container on flat car; Economic impacts; Freight terminals; Gantry cranes; Industries; Intermodal transportation; Railroad terminals; Trailer on flat car; Truck terminals
• Uncontrolled Terms: Capacity
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Economics; Freight Transportation; Highways; Society; Terminals and Facilities; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00476876
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 31 1988 12:00AM