Patriot Rail keep rolling with 5th buy

Published June 24th, 2008

By John Johnston
Managing Editor

Boca Raton based Patriot Rail Corp. has announced its fifth acquisition -- the Louisiana & North West Railroad (“LNW”), a short line freight railroad headquartered in Homer, Louisiana. 

This transaction marks the fifth railroad acquisition by Patriot since its inception in November 2006.  Patriot now operates a total of 321 miles of rail line in seven states, according to President and CEO of Patriot Rail Corp., Gary Marino.

“The LNW is an excellent fit with Patriot’s strategy of acquiring short line railroads with a solid customer base and considerable growth potential,” Marino said.

Incorporated 119 years ago, the LNW operates 68 miles of track from Gibsland, Louisiana, to McNeil, Arkansas, Marino said. Major commodities shipped include chemical products for Albemarle Corporation, wood products for Weyerhaeuser and Partee Flooring, steel products for CMC Steel Arkansas, and plastics for Berry Plastics. 

The LNW, which interchanges traffic with Union Pacific Railroad at McNeil and with Kansas City Southern Railroad at Gibsland, handles approximately 5,000 carloads of freight annually.  The railroad also owns 845 acres of real estate, operates five locomotives and has 27 employees.

“This is a very well managed and efficient railroad operation focused on providing customers with reliable and safe rail service.  In addition, we anticipate implementing a number of new business initiatives that will significantly grow the business over the next several years,” said Marino.

Green Line

In separate Patriot News, the firm announced that another of its lines, the Sacramento Valley Railroad in California, would test an environmentally friendly, state-of-the-art low emission locomotive this month.  This test is the result of SAV’s efforts to seek ways to help reduce air emissions in the Sacramento, CA region, said Marino, and will use the 2,000 horsepower RP20BD locomotive, provided by Railpower Technologies Corp. (“Railpower”), will be on loan to SAV for two weeks. 

“The RP20BD locomotive is a perfect fit for the stop-and-go switching operations at SAV.  With its innovative use of three engines, this locomotive produces power when needed while reducing emissions and using less fuel when idling,” said Stan Wlotko, Patriot senior vice president – operations.

The three engine multi-purpose GenSet locomotive utilizes Railpower’s patented common DC buss design to provide maximum operating efficiency -- a 30 percent to 50 percent fuel savings versus conventional locomotives in similar duty cycles and approximately 70 percent to 90 percent reduction of NOx emission in both yard and road switching applications.  Additionally, a modular component design significantly reduces maintenance and component replacement costs.  The RP20BD locomotive is classified as "Ultra Low Emitting Locomotive" under California Air Resource Board's criteria, said Wlotko.

SAV, based in McClellan, California, provides exclusive rail freight services on seven miles of rail line at McClellan Business Park.  McClellan Business Park, a 3,000-acre business park located near Sacramento, California, has more than 2.4 million square feet of rail-served facilities, including 155 industrial buildings, 35 warehouses and a 10-acre rail transloading yard.  SAV interchanges rail traffic with the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads.

“Railpower is a leader in this technology,” Wlotko said, “and we appreciate them letting us test this locomotive.  We are excited about possibly utilizing locomotives like these on all of our railroads, not only for the positive impact on the environment but for the operational efficiencies as well.”

Mitch Gillispie, Railpower Vice-President of Sales and Marketing, North America, said, “The fuel savings and emissions reduction that our Eco-Motive line of locomotives provides to our customers represent only half of the Railpower value story.  Using our proprietary control system, Railpower’s family of Eco-Motive locomotives significantly improves tractive effort by up to 80 percent, when compared to a conventional locomotive, depending on model and application.  For a short line like SAV, this means almost a 1 for 2 replacement ratio, allowing them to pull more with less.”