Ohio River Barge TrafficHighways

Metropolis is located just west of Interstate 24 with an average daily traffic count of 28,600. U.S. Highway 45 is the main highway through the City. State Highway 145 is located east of the community.

U.S. Highway 45 and a series of county roads make up the Ohio River Scenic By-way through Metropolis and Massac County.


Rail Service

Canadian National/Illinois Central

Canadian National is a Class One Railroad and is the fifth largest railroad in North America. CN moves a diversified portfolio of products across the continent east to west and north to south serving ports on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts linking customers to all three NAFTA nations.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe

Burlington Northern Santa Fe is one of the largest railroad networks in North America, with 33,500 miles covering 28 states and two Canadian provinces. This network covers the western two-thirds of the United States, stretching from the Pacific Northwest and southern California ports to the Midwest, southeast and southwest and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada.

Union Pacific Railroad

Major West coast and Gulf Coast port. It also serves four major gateways to the east: Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans.

Air Service

The Metropolis Municipal Airport provides general aviation services with a 3,000’ lighted runway.

Passenger air service is available at Barkley Regional Airport in Paducah, Kentucky (15 minutes from Metropolis). Commercial flights to St. Louis, Missouri are available from American Connection, a partner of American Airlines and to Memphis from Northwest Airlines. A $25 million improvement plan is being implemented to construct a new terminal and extend the second runway.

Midwest Aviation has a fleet of various sized planes to handle a wide variety of chartered freight. Midwest Aviation handles an average of 224 tons of cargo and can accommodate small package freight with its own fleet or arrange large bulk charters up to a Boeing #727. They have handled operations as large as 100,000 lbs. daily.

Air cargo services are also provided locally by United Parcel Services (UPS) whose international hub is located in Louisville, Kentucky and Federal Express whose international hub is located in Memphis, Tennessee.

Ports

Metropolis is located on the Ohio River. This area is known as the hub of inland waterways and has the most northern ice-free port.

Paducah-McCracken County Riverport

3 dock facilities at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers On-site rail and truck services for offloading and transporting commodities Warehouse capacity of 36,000 square feet 20 ton crane Outside storage on 27 acres Liquid cargo containers of up to 2.6 million gallons.

Cook Coal Terminal

Cook Coal Terminal located east of Metropolis is the United State’s busiest inland river coal terminal. Served by three major railroads: Canadian National, Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe. Served by all major barge lines Custom trans loading services.