Long story short. Looking to build a greenfield plant in Texas and one of the key factors is a rail siding given that we'll be moving 15k-20k MT of stuff annually to MX, C. America, and Canada. We will also have a good bit of ocean freight, but that is less of a concern in what we're doing. Optimal location is circled in the attached picture.

Rail sidings is a brand new thing for me to be dealing with, so I'm trying to obtain as much knowledge as possible on this topic as it is a huge piece of the puzzle for this operation and projecting our budget. Keeping transport costs down is huge for making this thing more viable.



Also, if you're a realtor in the area circled, feel free to reach out. Looking for 5-10 acres either outside of town or in an indsutrial park setting with a rail siding or the ability to add a rail siding.

TIA

Yes, it's a large part of what my companies does.

I can't help you much with the economics, but I can tell you that in that general area, your only real choice is likely to be to connect to one of the Union Pacific lines. Either going E-W along Hwy 90, or the line going N-S through Flatonia, Moulton, Shiner, and Yoakum. Depending on where you are going in Canada and Mexico/Central America, and if you are willing to move the area to the SW towards Victoria, Kansas City Southern operates what is referred to as the NAFTA Railway due to their direct partnerships/connections with Canadian and Mexican railroads. Their closest line runs from Houston to Victoria along US 59.

txags92 said:

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I can't help you much with the economics, but I can tell you that in that general area, your only real choice is likely to be to connect to one of the Union Pacific lines. Either going E-W along Hwy 90, or the line going N-S through Flatonia, Moulton, Shiner, and Yoakum. Depending on where you are going in Canada and Mexico/Central America, and if you are willing to move the area to the SW towards Victoria, Kansas City Southern operates what is referred to as the NAFTA Railway due to their direct partnerships/connections with Canadian and Mexican railroads. Their closest line runs from Houston to Victoria along US 59.

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This is honestly the area I'm trying to stick with because it is where I grew up and I have a labor pool I can pull from around there.

Only worked for a Class 1 for a few years before I changed careers our terms might vary.

I don't believe you are looking to build a "siding" those are built and maintained by the railroad to park trains to manage flow of track on the main lines.

I believe you want an industry "spur" built where a local train will come from a yard and service your facility picking up loaded cars and bringing you empties.

How economical it is to build one of those?! No idea, all the industry tracks where I worked sucked except for the big named companies who's product lived or died on the railroad being on time.

TexDill15 said:

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Only worked for a Class 1 for a few years before I changed careers our terms might vary.

I don't believe you are looking to build a "siding" those are built and maintained by the railroad to park trains to manage flow of track on the main lines.

I believe you want an industry "spur" built where a local train will come from a yard and service your facility picking up loaded cars and bringing you empties.

How economical it is to build one of those?! No idea, all the industry tracks where I worked sucked except for the big named companies who's product lived or died on the railroad being on time.

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Ahhh. Thanks for the correction. Like I said, starting from zero here essentially

Yep, sounds more like a spur.

If you haven't started talking with one of the carriers and rail owners, you need to start now because it will be a long process if anything new needs to be acquired or built or modified. Oh, and railways tell you what and how to build and in my limited experience there isn't any negotiations on their specs.

Dealing with the Railroads is "fun". I deal with UP and BN on a daily basis. They can really manipulate the markets with industrial incentives and all other sorts of unload incentives so that is something you are going to have to look into.

There are a lot of variables when it comes to building new track. But I've been told $350 a foot is about average.

Since you are only moving 15-20k MT is sounds like you'll be loading singles vs full shuttles so that should make things cheaper.

When the cars are there, are you going to have an agreement with UP to use their power or are you going to have a rail car mover of your own? If a derail happens at your facility (which it will) are you close to a company like Hulcher or R.J Corman close by to help?

Just some things to think about.

schmellba99 said:

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Yep, sounds more like a spur.

If you haven't started talking with one of the carriers and rail owners, you need to start now because it will be a long process if anything new needs to be acquired or built or modified. Oh, and railways tell you what and how to build and in my limited experience there isn't any negotiations on their specs.

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This is what I have heard. We were trying to buy a company that already had a lot of these things in place, but the deal fell through (for now). So now I get to start on the Plan B theory of this operation.

Just plan on a lot of getting handed off to somebody else, paperwork, negotiations on routing, etc. Assuming you are looking to buy ROW for the line as well?

schmellba99 said:

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Just plan on a lot of getting handed off to somebody else, paperwork, negotiations on routing, etc. Assuming you are looking to buy ROW for the line as well?

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At this time, everything is on the table and being considered

We have worked with this trackwork company several times in the past. They will do the small and the large stuff.

http://www.trac-work.com/

We have also worked with these guys at least once.

http://www.lonestarrailroad.com/services.php

If you need bridges or scales we can inspect, design, repair, and construct.

Another option is lease space from one of our customers NPH or Rail Logix. We did the overpass bridge in the video on the bottom of the web page. This location is in Elmendorf, TX and interchanges with both BNSF and UP.

https://rail-logix.com/locations/rail-logix-alamo-junction/

You're going to need one HELL of a Right Of Way Agent. Said Agent will need to live in, or very near to, that circle that you drew. Said Agent will also need experience with Rail Roads and those Agents don't grow on trees.....You're going to need to be understanding when the work out put drops off during hunting season,......

I could send you my.....I mean, that Agent's resume....

Also, TexDill is correct, you are looking for a Spur. A siding is when there are 2 parallel sets of tracts so that trains can pass each other, or one can get out of the other's way, or individual rail cars can be left there for another train to pick up.

Demurrage. be sure your loading and unloading capabilities can keep up with the number of cars you have coming and going so you don't get hammered with extra charges.

Irish, have you contacted Texas, Gonzales & Northern directly?

Username at yahoo - in Gonzales County, have designed and built numerous rail terminals for bulk materials, currently work for an engineering company that designs infrastructure for ports and harbors (including rail). Be glad to help or point you in the right direction.

As others have indicated, dealing with railroads is not fun. If you can find an existing spur that could be purchased, even if it wasn't in your area of first choice, it would reduce the amount of aggravation and cut a lot of time off your project. Good luck!

one safe place said:

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As others have indicated, dealing with railroads is not fun. If you can find an existing spur that could be purchased, even if it wasn't in your area of first choice, it would reduce the amount of aggravation and cut a lot of time off your project. Good luck!

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Can confirm. At a state superfund site I was working on in East Houston, the only access to the site was across rail lines. Just building a temporary crossing to bring in trucks to haul off waste was a multi-year process.

Many of the RR's own land and will build rail to suit if you have enough business that is attractive to them. Look at which RR's are in your area of interest and call them. You want to talk with people in business development at corporate and not the local folks. The local guys are great and make the trains run... but the HQ guys do the deals.

If your proposal isn't big enough for them, they can still steer you to existing vendors who already own land and buildings on their rail lines that might have space available for you (manufacturing, warehouse, etc).

Dont screw up that nice area w an ugly facility

one safe place said:

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As others have indicated, dealing with railroads is not fun. If you can find an existing spur that could be purchased, even if it wasn't in your area of first choice, it would reduce the amount of aggravation and cut a lot of time off your project. Good luck!

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This would be my first pick. There are sites that have existing spurs. The only thing I can say about the existing spur is make sure the spur is on the county's latest tax roll. If you insist on a new facility and spur, Lonestar rail contractor, Mr Kuecker runs a tight ship. His main lay down yard use to be outside Cuero, but he has expanded towards the Dallas area.

I was told once that the easiest way to get one is to lease or buy one that already exists because the process is so difficult and expensive.

For sure the path of least resistance and the ideal solution is to buy a property that already has a spur. However, as a contingency, I need to do due diligence to prepare to build our own.

I'm really not looking forward to doing a greenfield on this because I'll be the one overseeing it since I'm in Texas and the others involved are in California. If I could find a property with a spur and some existing structures that I could utilize for my plant, equipment, storage, etc., I'd be over the moon ecstatic because it will greatly reduce my buildout timeline too. I'm just getting my ducks in a row for our Plan A and Plan B.

I know that it is well outside of your circled area, I get it...but.....Brownwood has an industrial park, the locals call it Camp Bowie from the WWII days, It's on the south end of town but there are a lot of rail spurs there.

Kohler & 3M both have plants there, the name of the other major plant there escapes me. Just a thought, real estate is probably going to be cheaper there than in some of the area that you circled.

The circled area is a key part of our costing due to proximity of key suppliers. It isn't very economically feasible to move outside of that area. Otherwise we're talking about 6-7 figures in transport costs to Brownwood. Moving outside of that area will kill me on transportation costs.

txags92 said:

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one safe place said:

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As others have indicated, dealing with railroads is not fun. If you can find an existing spur that could be purchased, even if it wasn't in your area of first choice, it would reduce the amount of aggravation and cut a lot of time off your project. Good luck!

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Can confirm. At a state superfund site I was working on in East Houston, the only access to the site was across rail lines. Just building a temporary crossing to bring in trucks to haul off waste was a multi-year process.

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A couple of guys were putting a group together to buy a railroad spur where I live. It had been in place for decades but not used much for quite a long time. I knew those two guys very well as I did the other investors. All the hoops we were going to have to jump through, the environmental studies, and dealing with railroad knowing the issues the city had recently had in dealing with them, killed the deal.

The city had dealt with them on a few issues, one of which was putting large concrete drains under their tracks (main line and a siding) so that floodwater would be able to exit the city via low lying property on the other side of the tracks. It was quite a battle and, as I recall, the only way it moved forward was the discovery of some sort of ancient agreement between the city and the railroad that had never been enforced and would be quite costly to the railroad if it was. They had leverage our group did not.

Do you live in Brownwood area? My old HS coach is the AD/FB Head Coach there now.

There was a spur at Waelder that ran to outside of Gonzales to a feed plant. I don't know if it's still in use but there were quite a lot of grain cars sent there for all the chicken and turkey farms.
There were 2 spurs in downtown Yoakum but that's been quite sometime back. Cuero had 2 or 3 also to service a few businesses. Again I'd call these city Appraisal districts and see if they have spurs that the RR is paying their taxes on the switch. Victoria has the Aloe railcar repair shop that takes in cars. Also get on Google earth and follow the main line from Giddings to Cuero. Or the main line from Schulenberg to Seguin. There is another mainline that runs through Smithville but I never ran on that track.
Pioneer Resources built a new lay down yard next to the mainline north of Cuero and at one time they were planning a sand plant there. Then Pioneer was sold and property has never really been used. I think it might be for sale. It's next to the new Dodge dealer north of Cuero on the Gonzales highway.

There is a Spur a little West of Columbus at a wood treater near 90 and 71

But it is just outside of OPs area

The one thing I haven't seen in this thread is any reference to the FRA. If you're planning to build a spur that includes adding a switch into an operating freight line, especially if it's a Class 1 freight line, you will get to know the FRA intimately. And, as others have noted, you have to deal with the railroads. You haven't mentioned which decade you may want to start operating but it may not be the current one if you have jump through all the hoops. Are you sure you want to consider a greenfield spur?

AgEngineer72 said:

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The one thing I haven't seen in this thread is any reference to the FRA. If you're planning to build a spur that includes adding a switch into an operating freight line, especially if it's a Class 1 freight line, you will get to know the FRA intimately. And, as others have noted, you have to deal with the railroads. You haven't mentioned which decade you may want to start operating but it may not be the current one if you have jump through all the hoops. Are you sure you want to consider a greenfield spur?

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I absolutely don't want to go that route, but it is a contingency that we must explore.

Irish 2.0 said:

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Do you live in Brownwood area? My old HS coach is the AD/FB Head Coach there now.

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I do not live there now but I am from there. Fair amount of family there and in the area etc.

You may know Sammy B. then since it's his hometown too.

Irish 2.0 said:

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You may know Sammy B. then since it's his hometown too.

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We were in HS at the same time but he was a couple of years ahead of me. His mom was a Spanish teacher. His sister was a smoke wagon......

schmellba99 said:

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Yep, sounds more like a spur.

If you haven't started talking with one of the carriers and rail owners, you need to start now because it will be a long process if anything new needs to be acquired or built or modified. Oh, and railways tell you what and how to build and in my limited experience there isn't any negotiations on their specs.

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Yep. I like to say that railroads have the same authority as the federal government with none of the responsiveness. They are a huge pain in the ass to work with.

Look at Rockdale. Hour from your circled area.
Old Alcoa railhead or new industrial park with rail access being put in at Hwy 77/79 intersection. I'm President of Municipal Development District. We'd love to tell you what our area can offer