What's that rail doing in the highway?

Travelers to the Outer Banks and other southern shores may have noticed a brand new set of railroad tracks lying in the median of Interstate 664 just south of the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel. New light rail? No, alas, but it is something important for freight, a new pathway for about 4.5 of the 16.5 miles of the Commonwealth Railway, a short line that serves as the exclusive access to the new APM/Maersk freight terminal and the proposed Craney Island Terminal. The new rail bed, officially dubbed the Median Rail Safety Relocation Project, eliminates 14 at-grade crossings through Portsmouth neighborhoods and serves as a key link to The Heartland Corridor, a multi-state, federally-assisted effort to shave 1.5 days off the current path between Tidewater ports and Chicago. The Corridor, which also includes two new intermodal terminals (including one near Roanoke), will enable double-stacked trains on an existing rail route by eliminatiing 28 tunnels. Claiming the Corridor will take 1.9 million trucks off Virginia highways over 15 years, the state has dedicated $44.55 million for median rail, with federal funds supplying the remaining $15 million of the nearly $60 million project.