Watco Helps Small Town Land a New Manufacturer

In a small Kansas town, there’s a big business coming alive, and several Watco teams have had a role in helping it come to pass.

Watco is part of the North American expansion of Sicut Enterprises Ltd., a London-based manufacturer of railroad ties made of recycled plastic waste such as bottles and food packaging.

Through a property-search website, Sicut found Neodesha, in southeast Kansas, as a potential U.S. manufacturing location. Neodesha’s connections with Watco, and Watco’s experience with the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT), came together to satisfy Sicut’s requirements, which included having a rail-served site.

Sicut ultimately committed to Neodesha because of a KDOT economic development grant of $343,000 that Watco helped secure. The grant funded a Watco-designed rail spur connecting the plant to the nearby South Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad (SKOL).

“We used our relationships and assets to help attract this company,” said Chris Goodwin, a sales manager for several Watco operations, including the SKOL.

Jeri Hammerschmidt of the Neodesha city administrator’s office adds, “We may not have been successful with our business recruitment without the efforts of the Watco team.”

From operations to design and development, the Watco team came together to support our new customer. The SKOL team was involved in laying out how operations would look, including service days and times. Watco’s Design and Development team planned the engineering of the 468-foot rail spur, provided project management, and oversaw construction of the spur using 499 composite ties manufactured and supplied by Sicut. Watco Purchasing managed the transportation of the ties, shipped from Pennsylvania and Ohio, through Watco Logistics.

The Neodesha plant is Sicut’s first manufacturing facility in North America. The operation should bring about 135 jobs to the southeast Kansas area over the next five years.