Southern Idaho Successes

If you want to see the full range of Watco’s customer service capabilities in action, look no further than southern Idaho.

In early 2020, an ethanol plant on the Eastern Idaho Railroad (EIRR) was forced to shut down. Ethanol is made from corn, but the thriving Idaho dairy industry also runs on corn. Liberty Basin, a cattle feed provider, saw potential at the site.

They purchased a majority of the facility, developed plans for a high-tech feed processing facility, and turned to the Watco team for support. The EIRR team created a service plan to support their vision for a new 300-railcar capacity storage barn and expanded rail infrastructure to accommodate unit trains and manifest cars simultaneously. Watco’s Design & Development team was brought in to help with planning and construction oversight.

“Liberty Basin came in and breathed fresh life into the complex,” said Sales Director Kurtis Lindsey. “We came in at the 10-yard line and helped get it into the end zone. What they’ve done is very impressive, especially considering it was completely idle two years ago.”

Liberty Basin’s investment also helped the ethanol plant get running again. Today, the EIRR is providing rail service to both customers with the help of a rail yard expansion made possible by a Federal Railroad Administration Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement grant.

Just over a mile down the line, the Burley Transload Terminal is also getting in on the action. Formerly a primarily perishable, food-grade warehouse, the terminal has expanded to support the dairy industry from start to finish. The team created a new dedicated laydown space to accommodate rebar and other steel products used to build barns and equipment for the large dairy farms in the area. They also store and transload powdered milk and cheese, and components for consumer dairy product packaging, like bags and containers. They also cross-dock frozen butter, moving it directly from inbound trucks to outbound railcars.

“It all kind of ties into and centers around the cow,” Lindsey said. “What’s changed is that it’s less a perishable warehouse and more of a total Watco warehouse. We can handle almost anything. The entire team in Southern Idaho has done a great job adapting and serving the changing needs of our customers.”