Western Nebraska Facility Upgrades

An agribusiness supply chain company was upgrading their facilities in Western Nebraska. They planned to add a new facility for receiving and loading out grain products to both trucks and railcars. These changes would increase capacity for that facility and the company. To move a greater quantity of grain, they needed to make improvements to their rail infrastructure as well.

The Affinis railroad team worked with the serving railroad to create two, new connections for unit train operations. For the Rail Load Out Improvement project, we designed 13,400 track feet, three No. 11 turnouts, 13 CMP culverts, two public at-grade crossings, and three private site at-grade crossings. In addition to the material handling lead track, we were also tasked with designing a double track section for inbound and outbound train handling and car storage, which will help increase our client’s efficiency of operations.

In designing this solution, we kept the rail improvements small and cost-effective with a focus on increasing productivity. The new unit train track is comprised of three components, including an inbound, outbound, and tail track through the loadout facility capable of handling 30 cars. Having tracks for both inbound and outbound operations allows our client to speed up their operations and continue to move their business forward.

Learn about some of the challenges we encountered here.