Patriot Rail Company summary
Patriot Rail Company is a transportation holding company managing multiple shortline railroads across the United States. It’s owned by Australian infrastructure investment firm First Sentier Investors, with Igneo Infrastructure Partners serving as the majority investor. Headquartered out of Jacksonville, Florida, Patriot Rail operates over 1,200 miles of standard-gauge track.
History
Patriot Rail was founded in 2006 after successfully acquiring the 149-mile Tennessee Southern Railroad between Columbus, Tenn., and Florence, Alabama. By 2010, the company has grown to seven railroads and shortly afterwards finished the year off with its largest acquisition of six additional short lines from the Weyerhaeuser Company. SteelRiver Infrastructure Partners maintained ownership of Patriot Rail from 2012 until 2019 when it was sold to First Sentier Investors.
Operations
Patriot Rail specializes in a variety of services to provide its customer’s needs. This includes freight haulage, railcar storage and maintenance, rail cleanup and transfer, tank car cleaning and environmental services, switching, transloading, engineering services, passenger excursion operations, real estate, and track access.
The company operates 31 shortline freight railroads in 23 states. Nearly half were part of the Denver-based Pioneer Lines, acquired from BRX Transportation Holdings in September 2022. The primary focus is working with both new and existing customers to provide an organic growth and continual evaluation in further railroad acquisitions and expansions.
In December 2013, Blue Ridge Railcar Repair LLC began operations as a subsidiary to Patriot Rail after its assets in Keysville, Virginia, were acquired. The facility contains 21 acres of land with 11,000 feet of track to allow storage of up 130 freight cars. Blue Ridge handles repair, cleaning and painting for a wide variety of railcar types including boxcars, hoppers, gondolas, and flatcars.
Lakeshore Railcar & Tanker Services is an affiliate to Patriot Rail in East Chicago, Indiana, that specializes in railcar cleaning of tank cars and hoppers. Transloading, maintenance, hazardous material testing, wastewater treatment services and railcar scraping is also provided at the 36-acre complex.
Patriot Rail provides passenger excursions as part of the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway since 2015. With trackage rights over the northern section of the Georgia Northern Railroad, the train carries people from Blue Ridge, Ga., along the Toccoa River to the state line in McCaysville, Ga., and Copperhill, Tenn.
