JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Patriot Rail Co. has completed its acquisition of Denver-based Pioneer Lines, nearly doubling the company’s short line operations.
The transaction closed Wednesday following regulatory approval, Patriot said. It will expand the company from 16 to 31 railroads, with operations in 23 states.
“We are pleased to bring Pioneer Lines railroads into Patriot Rail,” Patriot Rail CEO John E. Fenton said in a press release. “Doubling our footprint across the U.S. furthers our commitment to exceed customer expectations as a best-in-class rail partner. Patriot Rail takes great pride in delivering value to our customers with safety always as our core foundation, and our expansion will drive deeper commercial and logistics relationships.”
Patriot announced the acquisition in August [see “Patriot Rail to acquire Pioneer Lines …,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 8, 2022].
“Patriot Rail’s accelerating growth opens more opportunities for innovative and sustainable freight transport solutions,” said John Ma, Patriot board member and co-head of North America for Igneo Infrastructure Partners, Patriot’s majority investor. “Igneo continues to see strong potential for long-term returns through our investment in the Patriot Rail platform.”
This acquisition still doesn’t make much sense. Pioneer Lines is a holder of a large quantity of functionally marginal lines on decrepit ROW and rely heavily on federal and state grants to pay for ROW improvements just to maintain service to one, maybe two customers.
Some of these lines are 1 bridge failure away from ceasing operations. So unless this is a real estate or car storage play, I just don’t see what Patriot Rail is all excited about. I hope Patriot has plenty in the bank, because some of these lines are going to come asking.
Would love to see them bring back a tourist train between Butte Montana and Anaconda as we got to ride this twice and the history of these two cities is incredible.Also at this time of year the scenery with the fall colors is incredible.