Military

Lamberts Point
Norfolk, Virginia

The Fast Sealift Ship Altair training ship is located at Lambert's Point in Norfolk, Virginia.

The Magnetic Silencing Facility maintains and operates degaussing ranges at the Sewells Point Degaussing Range and Lamberts Point Deperming Station and magnetic treatment and calibration services at Lamberts Point Deperming Station. The Station provides degaussing services, including ranging and deperming for US Navy, US Government and friendly nation ships. They also provide technical reports as required, maintain degaussing records of all US Navy ships, and provide on board technical and administrative training to both US Navy ships and friendly nation Navies.

The Magnetic Silencing Facility also provides technical reports as required, maintain degaussing records of all U.S. Navy ships, and provide on board technical and administrative training to both U.S. Navy ships and friendly nation Navies. The Magnetic Silencing Facility is composed of the OS division, that provides logistics and maintenance support for the operation of the degaussing range, and the Deperming Division that provides logistics, maintenance, and operational support for the deperming station.

In June 2000 more than 2,000 soldiers from 46 units are participating in TRANSLOTS, using landing craft to unload one of the military's newest cargo ships and then truck supplies to the front lines. For the first time, the annual transportation exercise was running in conjunction with Roving Sands, a joint-theater air and missile defense exercise involving more than 18,000 troops from several nations. The Navy provided one of the military's largest cargo ships, the recently-built USNS Fisher. The Fisher was loaded with equipment from Fort Eustis, Va., and was offloaded by Army landing craft and other lighterage while anchored in Chesapeake Bay offshore of Fort Story, Va. More than 400 military vehicles and containers were offloaded from the Fisher -- a new Large Medium-Speed Ro-Ro vessel -- and also from the Pollux, a Fast Sealift Ship docked at Lamberts Point in Norfolk, Va.

Lamberts Point Coal Terminal is the largest coal-transloading terminal in the Northern Hemisphere. Norfolk Southern Railway Company operates this Coal Transloading Facility on the Elizabeth River in Norfolk, Virginia to transfer coal from rail cars to ships. Annual through-put capacity is 48 million tons. The facility is located adjacent to a residential area and in proximity of the Old Dominion University. Coal moving through Lamberts Point originates primarily in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. The heart of the terminal is Pier 6, which has two shiploaders that permit the facility to load two vessels simultaneously. Twin tandem rotary dumpers feed the shiploaders for a combined dumping capacity of up to 8,000 tons per hour. Vessel loading is facilitated by two surge silos. Pier 6, a descendent of five earlier piers located at Lamberts Point, extends 1,850 feet into the Elizabeth River. At a depth of 50 feet, the channel is the deepest on the East Coast. On the pier are two mammoth shiploaders that can each feed up to 8,000 tons of coal per hour into the holds of ships and barges. Each shiploader weighs 2,800 tons and stands 182 feet above mean water level. They were the largest self-propelled structures in the world when built. Today, only Cape Canaveral's massive rocket transporters are larger.