Watco Teams Rock Mid-States Partnership
Under the rolling hills in southeastern Kansas lies some of the best construction-grade limestone in the region. To take advantage of this natural deposit, Mid-States Materials, an aggregate producer, opened the Grand Summit quarry near the small town of Grenola. Once the rock was excavated, they faced the challenge of finding an economic way to get their product to market. Fortunately, Watco’s South Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad (SKOL) runs right next to the quarry and has decades of experience hauling aggregates from this area. Mid-States Materials and Watco formed a partnership to construct a new siding at the quarry, find a fleet of railcars to carry the limestone, and get the rock to market. “The good, construction-grade limestone rock in Kansas is located in the eastern part of the state,” said Chad Hasler, Mid-States Materials Sales. “It’s more durable than the limestone in central and western Kansas. Normally, we’d haul this by truck, but that’s only economically feasible for 30 to 60 miles. So, we began working with Watco to get it on the rail.”
8 The Dispatch | July 2021
