SHIP

Bills of lading must be tendered directly to the Norfolk Southern or must be transmitted to the NS from the origin railroad on an interline move. For shipments originating at an NS origin, we strongly recommend that one of the two electronic options be employed. Electronic bills are more accurate, and greatly expedite your shipment through the terminal gate transaction process. There are three ways to submit your bills:

1. Electronically

Electronic submission of bills of lading is the most efficient means of billing your shipments with the Norfolk Southern. Regardless of the EDI package employed, you will need to execute an EDI agreement with the NS, a copy of which can be requested through NS' EDI Services at (800) 854-2780. There are two general means of submitting your bills electronically:

iBOL
The fastest way to send bills is electronically through Internet Bill of Lading (iBOL) in the accessNS. These bills are processed immediately by NS and can be sent up to 10 minutes prior to arrival of the shipment at the terminal gate.

Other EDI Packages
There are numerous other EDI packages used by shippers. Some of these are processed in a real time manner while others are batch processed. In submitting bills to the NS through one of these systems, it is important to send them far enough in advance to ensure that they make it through any batch processing. For example, if your EDI provider batch processes information every four hours, then you will want to send your bill at least four hours prior to the arrival of your shipment at the terminal. This will ensure that the bill of lading is in NS' system and your shipment can be quickly processed.

2. Fax
Bills of lading can also be faxed to the origin terminal. To ensure that these bills are available, please send them as soon in advance as possible, but no later than two hours prior to the arrival of your shipment at the terminal gate.

3. At the Gate

Though we do not recommend it, bills of lading can also be provided by the driver at the terminal gate. Due to the amount of time required for manual input of the information, your shipment may be delayed.

Please note, it is a good idea to have the trucker bring a copy of the bill of lading to the terminal after the bill has been faxed or transmitted. For a current list of terminal specific contacts and fax numbers for said transaction, please see our Terminals and Sales Offices Listing. General questions about bills of lading should be directed to (800) 854-2780 between the hours of 8 A.M. and 5 P.M. Monday through Friday.

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