2024 SHORT LINE HONORABLE MENTION: EIRR

(Kurtis Lindsey, Watco Photograph, Courtesy of Watco)

RAILWAY AGE, MARCH 2024 ISSUE: Partnering with customers, plus the in-house Watco team, helps this small road win business and support communities.

Watco assumed operations of Eastern Idaho Railroad (EIRR) from Union Pacific in 1993. It operates across 358 track miles in eastern and south-central Idaho, serving customers in the Magic Valley region, which spans from near the Wyoming border to Twin Falls and further west. More than 80% of traffic is related to the agriculture industry. 

EIRR’s focus on mutual growth with existing customers, creating new relationships, leveraging Watco’s logistics capabilities, and teaming with state and federal agencies for infrastructure investment has helped build business. In the past five years, the short line has added nearly 11,000 carloads and at least eight new customer accounts; at least six customers significantly expanded existing rail facilities. 

When an EIRR-served ethanol plant shut down at the start of the pandemic, the railroad partnered with the facility owner and Liberty Basin, a cattle feed company, to redevelop the site. EIRR worked with the feed company to ensure that rail-served storage facilities could be updated. Liberty Basin then purchased the majority of the facility and began improvements, allowing the ethanol plant to resume operations with a test train in December 2020 and to ramp up production in early 2021. EIRR not only brought a new customer on line, but also helped to revive another, bring back and add jobs, and boost rail traffic.

EIRR collaborates with Watco’s Burley warehouse to serve the booming dairy market. Having the warehouse’s cross-docking and storage capabilities allows the railroad to support nearly every facet of the market: rebar for building barns and facilities, feed ingredients, milk products, and plastics for packaging.

Hauling wood flour (recycled sawdust from lumber) incorporates another of Watco’s core service areas—logistics—when trucking is necessary, and supports Watco’s Boise Valley Railroad, where the producer is located.

As business has grown, better infrastructure and increased capacity was necessary and made possible, in part, through a $7.5 million FRA CRISI grant in 2020. EIRR partnered with the Idaho Transportation Department to complete the $9.4 million investment.

At Gular Yard in Rupert where EIRR interchanges with UP, Watco in-house engineers and the EIRR m/w team designed and constructed a solution that would ease congestion, improve safety, and help the community. Four tracks were each extended by 2,876 feet, allowing the railroad to build trains within the yard. Wear and tear to the main line decreased because it was no longer used for switching, which had caused a two-hour delay each day for Rupert residents at a grade crossing. Now, the crossing is blocked for less than an hour per day. Two out-of-service tracks were also removed.

Finally, EIRR replaced the main line track through Rupert with CWR, and added a 7,000-foot passing track so three southern branch customers could receive regular unit train service. The projects were completed in 2023.