Patriot Rail subsidiary wins McClellan Park rail services contract
A unit of Boca Raton, Fla.-based Patriot Rail has been awarded an exclusive contract to provide rail freight services at a major industrial and warehouse complex near Sacramento, Calif.
The contract calls for Sacramento Valley Railroad, a newly formed and wholly owned Patriot subsidiary, to provide all switching and rail-related services, in addition to support for transloading operations, on seven miles of rail line within the McClellan Business Park, located about 10 miles northeast of the California state capitol.
Financial details and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.
SAV will transfer rail traffic from within the business park to adjacent tracks served by the Union Pacific and BNSF railroads.
Last year the business park handled more than 3,500 rail carloads of products ranging from lumber to petroleum to manufactured products.
McClellan Park, adjacent to McClellan Airfield, features more than 2.4 million square feet of rail-served facilities, including 155 industrial buildings, 35 warehouses and a 10-acre rail-transloading yard. Redeveloped for commercial use from the decommissioned McClellan Air Force Base community, the park features numerous amenities not normally found in a business park, such as a hotel, corporate housing facilities, a six-age daycare center, an outdoor sports and indoor fitness complex, an aviation museum, and a golf course.
SAV parent firm Patriot is a short line and regional freight railroad holding company, operating 253 rail miles of track through four short line freight railroads — the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railway in Montana; the Tennessee Southern Railroad in Tennessee and Alabama; the Utah Central Railway in Utah; and now the SAV.
The original Sacramento Valley Railroad was California's first railroad, starting operations in 1856 between Sacramento and Folsom. The railroad operated the 22-mile route for more than 20 years before the firm was consolidated into the Sacramento and Placerville Railroad. Much of the original SAV routes still exists and is operated today by Union Pacific.