Farmrail System Incorporated summary
Farmrail System Incorporated is a holding company that operates a pair of Class III short line railroads in western Oklahoma: Farmrail Corporation (FMRC) and Grainbelt Corporation (GNBC). The company and railroads are all owned by the employees who have direct involvement with the daily operations and overall business. A total of 347 miles of standard-gauge track between the two common carriers are used to serve Oklahoma’s 29 communities in 12 counties.
History
Farmrail System was formed in November 1981 by George Betke to lease and operate 35 miles of the former Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad’s Sunbelt Line from the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. Operations between Clinton and Elk City began shortly afterwards under the subsidiary Farmrail Corp. The company has since experienced significant growth with the railroad expanding an additional 136-miles as well as the establishment of a second railroad in 1987, the 178-mile Grainbelt Corp.
Operations
More than 50 consumers use Farmrail System’s rail networks for freight haulage. The territory along the lines holds some of the nation’s prime production of hard-red winter wheat, the highest-quality of gypsum deposits, and one of the largest energy reserves in the Anadarko Basin. Frac sand is the top commodity on the railroads as it’s delivered to six transloading locations for the drilling sites in a five-county region. Other traffic includes drilling fluids, winter wheat, feed ingredients, crushed stone, gypsum products, agricultural chemicals, cotton seed, and farm machinery.
Nearly a dozen secondhand EMD diesel locomotives provide the motive power on both lines. The bulk of the fleet over the years were the GP9s before being phased out due to the increase in traffic. The variety now ranges from GP10s to GP38s, wearing the livery of the Farmrail System.
Clinton is where the railroads of Farmrail and Grainbelt interchange with one another. From there, the GNBC connects with the Union Pacific Railroad and BNSF Railway in Enid; the Stillwater Central in Snyder; and the Wichita, Tillman & Jackson Railroad in Frederick. The FMRC interchanges with both BNSF and the WTJ at Altus. Trackage rights are also provided to the BNSF interchange in Quanah, Texas, generating a southward expansion for Farmrail System.
Read more about Farmrail System Incorporated in Trains’ June 2015 issue.
