Jacksonville, Florida-based railroad CSX Transportation - the main subsidiary of CSX Corporation - has launched a new domestic intermodal rail service connecting the Ohio Valley to Pennsylvania and Texas in a move to compete directly with the railway's over-the-road competitors.

The new service, which began on November 2, will run Monday through Friday from the CSX-served Northwest Ohio Intermodal Container Terminal Facility in North Baltimore, Ohio to terminals in Dallas as well as Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, IHS Media reported.

"The service provides a competitive transit alternative to over-the-road shipping, delivering both capacity and cost-savings benefits," the company said in a statement.

According to CSX, the railroad this year has been winning back cargo lost to over-the-road competitors in 2014.

"In 2014, we lost some intermodal business back to the highway due to the service issues. But we are actually seeing some of that volume return in 2015 as services improve," Mr Gooden said.

CSX has said it is still recovering today from the loss and its Ohio intermodal hub is part of the recovery effort.

After opening the terminal in early 2011, CSX has added 200 origin and destination pairs, mostly to small and medium-sized markets, bringing its network reach to more than 600 points.

CSX's ability to offer more shippers the option to convert freight normally moved via truck to rail helped push traffic at the hub up about 15 per cent in 2014 to 2.3 million TEU. Driven by consumer growth and highway-to-rail conversion, domestic intermodal business at CSX performed well in the third quarter and was up 15 per cent year-over-year.