New contract guarantees 160,000 rail car shipments over the next four years. http://www.watcocompanies.com/news/the_dispatch/Volume_10/Watco March Dispatch.pdf Austin Western Railroad Making History by Tracie VanBecelaere Managing Editor The Austin Western Railroad (AWRR)in Austin, Texas, recently celebrated its one year anniversary and in traditional Texas fashion they did it in a big way. "We just signed the largest railcar agreement in Watco history on the AWRR," said Allan Roach, Watco's SVP of Business Development. "Since Watco took over operations of the rail line we have been working with Capital Aggregates,our largest shipper, on a long term agreement to increaserail shipments over the line. Thanks to some creative teamwork by all the parties involved, a new contract guarantees 160,000 railcar shipments over the next four years, nearly doubling existing rail shipments originating on the line." The AWRR primarily moves aggregates from the Marble Falls, Texas, area to the BNSF and UP interchanges near Austin and to new local on-line markets that have been created. The quarries that support the rock traffic have 100-year reserves and the demand or rock is strong and will continue to grow. "To ship 40,000 railcars a year Capitol Aggregates recently completed an expansion of its Marble Falls quarry and rail load out system." said Joel Galassini, VP Sales with Capitol Aggregates. The expansion included a sophisticated high speed system of conveyors that can deliver rock from various locations in the quarry to the new 100 car unit train loading loop track at the quarry. AWRR and Capitol Aggregates worked together to design the $6 million dollar unit train unloading site located near Manor, Texas, 80 miles from the quarry. The loop will receive approximately 15,000 of the 40,000 shipments per year. Commuter rail to begin operations One unique aspect of the AWRR is that in March commuter rail will also be traveling along the line. This means the new traffic will have to move in half the time when commuter operations start. Parties involved in the drafting of the agreement to accommodate for the commuter rail were: AWRR as the freight operator; Capital Aggregates, who owns and operates the quarry; Veolia,the commuter operator, the City of Austin, who owns the rail line and CMTA, the state authority that oversees the rail line. "Trying to get all parties to agree on the contract and how we will move this much freight without interfering with the new commuter operations was stressful at times" says Roach. "Kevin Timmins who oversees the freight operations for CMTA did a great job of keeping everyone at the table and on the same page through the negotiations phase. We needed all four parties to have skin in the game if we were to be successful. We persevered and the new contract that all four parties signed has paved the way for CMTA to return a profit on the freight line for the first time in its history while at the same time providing new commuter service without having to build a separate rail line for commuter trains. The cost savings to the city is huge and the commuter line probably would not be a reality if a new separate line had to be built." Veolia will operate the commuter operations during a 12-hour daytime window and AWRR will operate the freight operations over the same tracks the remaining hours. "Veolia is a world-wide leader in commuter rail operations and will operate the commuter service, primarily days," says John Thompson, VP Transportation Veolia. "One of the reasons Watco won the bid on this operation is because our freight schedule model offers the greatest opportunity to incorporate freight and commuter rail service successfully together," says David Lutz, General Manager for the AWRR. "We believe this operation will be the model for future commuter/freight operations in cities that desire to add commuter operations to existing rail freight lines. In this instance we added a commuter operation to the mix to really test our creativity. In the end the collaborative efforts of all parties made this a success," said Roach. AWRR shippers met early on in the planning stages to help design a commuter and freight logistics plan to satisfy the needs of both commuters and freight customers. It is very important to the City of Austin that commuter and freight coexist on the rail line. Without the AWRR freight operation, an additional 168,000 trucks per year would be added to the streets and highways in the Austin area. In the next 5 years that number could increase to 200,000 trucks per year if the freight/commuter rail model was not redesigned to handle the increase in traffic. "This area of Texas has experienced tremendous growth and will continue to do so. We now need to begin the process of looking at the entire area surrounding the AWRR and work with our Class 1 Partners to develop a strategic plan that accommodates this growth," says Ed McKechnie, Watco Chief Commercial Officer.
Interesting. Perhaps we have someone in the area who can supply some photos, and update us as things progress? Boxcab E50
Boxcab: I was down there last summer training locomotive engineers. The freight will be handled at night and the commuters during the day. Included in this territory is also the Austin Steam train operation which runs weekends. Austin and Western rock trains load on a loop facility on the west end and empty on a simialr loop facilty on the east end. At this time the commuter operation is being held up awaiting approval/permission to operate the diesel commuter trains which are foreign made not to current standards. Barry
From the Watco website: The Austin Western Railroad (AWRR) operates 155 miles of track from Llano, TX to Giddings, TX with a 6.4 mile branch extending from Fairland to Marble Falls,TX. The line dates back to 1871 when the Houston and Texas Central Railroad built the Giddings to Austin line. The AWRR interchanges with the UP at McNeil and Elgin. Nearly 49,000 carloads move annually, shipping commodities such as aggregates, crushed limestone, calcium bicarbonate, lumber beer, chemicals, plastics and paper. Beginning in 2009 the City of Austin, TX will begin commuter rail operations on the freight line. Once commuter rail commences freight service will operate primarily at night during non-commuter operations
