MSE, W&LE, EIRR Accept Railway Age Awards

Railway Age’s 2024 Short Line Railroad of the Year is Mississippi Export Railroad (MSE). (Chip Haffner Photograph, Courtesy of MSE)

Mississippi Export Railroad (MSE) and Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway Company (W&LE) accepted Railway Age’s 2024 Short Line and Regional Railroads of the Year Awards at the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) 2024 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Kansas City, Mo., on March 25. Watco’s Eastern Idaho Railroad (EIRR) received Short Line Honorable Mention.

This year’s honorees reflect an entrepreneurial spirit and a commitment to excellence—from safety and efficiency to community relations and customer service. The business opportunities and obstacles—in terms of reach or geography or product movement—may differ. But each one has focused on growth by turning around aging infrastructure, boosting industrial development, and/or teaming with current and new customers.

Short Line of the Year MSE continues to lead the way in its commitment to safety, growth, and community outreach after more than 100 years of service. The 42-mile Class III extends from Pascagoula to Evanston, Miss., and is the north-south corridor connecting CN and the east-west line of CSX. 

MSE began operations in 1922 when Gregory M. Luce purchased and reorganized the defunct Alabama & Mississippi Railroad. Over the years, it has diversified service, expanded reach and increased economic impact. Today, it is run by Luce’s great-great-granddaughter, Kate Luce Bourgeois, a Railway Age 2022 Women in Rail honoree. She assumed leadership in 2017 and formed a subsidiary, Alabama Export Railroad, in 2019.

Growth is a core competency of MSE, which aligns with its commitment to providing rail and transportation solutions for its customers—from investing in development properties to enhancing rail services such as transloading and car repair. MSE recently made a 132-acre real estate purchase near the Port of Mobile to develop rail-served warehousing. It also began expanding the Helena, Miss., Industrial Park.

“Safety is a top priority for MSE,” Railway Age Executive Editor Marybeth Luczak said during the awards presentation. “Over the past 19 years, it has received the Jake Award with Distinction 12 times, and the Jake Award five times. It has also installed more than 20,000 new crossties in the past five years.”

Also important to MSE is outreach. In 2023, it partnered with a local museum, educating young people on the values of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (S.T.E.A.M.), and their relationship to railroads. It has also worked for many years with the Pascagoula High School’s College and Career Technical Institute Welding Program.

Besides being recognized by Railway Age, MSE has been honored by CSX with the Class I’s 2023 Short Line Growth Award for traffic measured from July 2022 to June 2023, compared with the prior-year period. And it achieved second place in Percentage Lineal Growth, with a 164% increase from the previous year. Overall, MSE has achieved manifest carload traffic growth of 234% during the past five years.

Kate Luce Bourgeois accepted Railway Age’s Short Line of the Year Award on behalf of MSE. MSE Chair Greg Luce was also in attendance.

(For more, read “2024 SHORT LINE OF THE YEAR: MSE” from Railway Age’s April 2024 issue.)

Regional of the Year W&LE operates more than 800 miles of track in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. One of the largest Class II’s in the country and the largest Ohio-based railroad, it serves 100-plus customers and handles more than 140,000 carloads per year.

Committed to operational safety, W&LE has reinvested more than $275 million since 2015, including the upgrade of all primary routes to Continuous Welded Rail as of year-end 2023. Under the leadership of Larry R. Parsons, CEO and majority owner since 1994, the regional also earned a Jake Award in 2022.

“Customers were behind W&LE’s 2024 Regional of the Year win; its second since 2004,” Railway Age’s Marybeth Luczak told ASLRRA Annual Conference & Exhibition attendees. “Warrenton River Terminal Facility Manager Evan Fraley and National Lime and Stone Vice President Ken Dinwiddie nominated the railroad.”

Warrenton River Terminal in Ohio was acquired by a new ownership team in 2018, and has since increased the number of commodities transloaded and shipped from two to more than seven and has grown rail volumes into and out of the terminal by a factor of five to eight times.

Evan Fraley told Railway Age: “W&LE is a superb partner to work with at all stages of a transloading transaction. They have put us together with potential customers they identified and worked closely with others we identified. They have also worked creatively with Class I’s, moving cargo more efficiently, creating certain improvements in cycle times and resulting in improved reliability for rail customers. Operationally, W&LE demonstrates how to enhance the value of a transaction for all parties, while continually improving its own overall performance.”

Over the past two years, Warrenton River Terminal has partnered with W&LE to expand its rail footprint, and Fraley said it was also successful in enabling another, unrelated company to build a rail spur to increase rail volumes for W&LE.

“The regional’s team has been nothing short of a pleasure to work with,” Fraley said. “They demonstrate solid creativity together with a ‘can do’ operating attitude.” Fraley explained that when the terminal is ready to discuss a new customer, concept or product, the railroad’s operational management team is brought in right away. W&LE’s inclusive approach “saves time and engages all parties in determining if, how and when a project can move forward,” he said.

Commented Ken Dinwiddie: “W&LE prides itself on service by staying nimble and listening to customer needs.” The management and sales teams “go the extra mile to make sure they are equitable partners with their customers,” he reported. He added that W&LE is a leader: “The Class I’s should take notes.”   

W&LE’s Vice President of Marketing and Sales Justin Crues and Assistant Vice President Business Development Jeff Sunderland accepted the award on behalf of the regional.

(For more, read “2024 REGIONAL OF THE YEAR: W&LE” from Railway Age’s April 2024 issue.)

Watco assumed operations of Railway Age’s Short Line Honorable Mention, the 358 route-mile EIRR in eastern and south-central Idaho, from Union Pacific in 1993.

“EIRR has built business by focusing on mutual growth with existing customers, creating new relationships, leveraging Watco’s logistics capabilities, and teaming with state and federal agencies for infrastructure investment,” Marybeth Luczak said during the awards presentation. “Over the past five years, it 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 teamed with the facility owner and cattle feed company Liberty Basin to redevelop the site. Liberty Basin purchased the majority of the facility and began improvements, allowing the ethanol plant to resume operations in early 2021. The railroad not only brought a new customer on line, but also helped to revive another, bring back and add jobs, and boost rail traffic.

EIRR also collaborates with Watco’s Burley warehouse to serve the dairy market, and incorporates another of Watco’s core service areas—logistics—when trucking is necessary as part of a wood flour move.

As Eastern Idaho Railroad business has grown, better infrastructure and increased capacity was necessary and made possible, in part, through a $7.5 million CRISI grant from the Federal Railroad Administration in 2020. The railroad partnered with Idaho Transportation Department to complete the $9.4 million investment in 2023.

Watco Director of Rail Infrastructure, Division 1 and 2 Cameron Ginther, one of Railway Age’s 2023 “Fast Trackers,” accepted the award.

(For more, read “2024 SHORT LINE HONORABLE MENTION: EIRR” from Railway Age’s April 2024 issue.)

For information on the ASLRRA awards presented in Kansas City, read: “ASLRRA Announces 2024 Business Development, Veterans Engagement Award Winners” and “ASLRRA Honors Safety Professional, Safety Person of the Year; Names 2024 Environmental Award Winner.”