Posts Tagged ‘vice president of marketing and sales’

Rail cars of sand to be used in Marcellus Shale natural gas extraction get a home.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

DURYEA – Investment spurred by Marcellus Shale natural gas exploration has transformed an antiquated, weed-ridden rail yard just north of Pittston into a state-of-the-art transloading terminal teeming with rail and trucking activity on an almost daily basis.

Over the last year, Reading & Northern Railroad Co. sunk $100,000 into Pittston Yard, laying new track to accommodate 100 new rail cars and constructing a facility to store and hold up to 800 cars of sand to be used in hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” operations at Marcellus Shale drill sites throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania, said Reading & Northern President Warren A. Michel.

“The reason for our success is that we are the largest facility in the region capable of handling hundreds of rail cars of sand. We now have 130 (sand) rail cars at the yard and we’ll be expanding substantially over the next six months,” Michel said.

The company rewarded its full-time employees for their work on the project and throughout last year with an extra week of paid vacation this year and a paid trip to their choice of either Disney World; Branson, Mo.; Williamsburg, Va.; London; or a cruise.

“This is our way of saying thank you for a job well done,” company owner and Chief Executive Officer Andrew M. Muller Jr. said in a press release.

Between Reading & Northern and its customers, who are involved in the Marcellus Shale fracking and drilling industries, Michel expects another half-million dollars of investment with the laying of more track, construction of bucket conveyors and four holding silos for the sand, and construction of facilities to handle other aspects of the drilling process, such as pipe delivery and the transportation of brine water from the area.

The upgrade and expansion project began about a year ago after Reading & Northern officials began hearing that drilling companies were challenged with the logistics of transporting and storing significant volumes of sand, pipe, water and other materials, according to a marketing release prepared by Daniel Gilchrist, Reading & Northern vice president of marketing and sales.

After several discussions with Reading & Northern partner Norfolk Southern, company officials believed they could offer substantial benefits to customers, Gilchrist said.

Pittston Yard, formerly Coxton Yard, was built in 1870 by the Lehigh Railroad as a hub to move coal from the region to Eastern markets. And while the yard had had been serving many Reading & Northern customers, it was overgrown with weeds and trees and was underutilized.

Many of the tracks were suitable only to hold empty storage cars, and it was not apparent initially how much track and acreage was actually there and available for use, Gilchrist said.

After showing the site and meeting with several potential customers, Reading & Northern began discussions with D&I Silica and its transload operator, the Myles Group, and developed a plan.

Work began in November with tree removal, clearing of several acres, surfacing of more than 5,200 feet of track and construction of a 600-by-80-foot unloading pad. By Dec. 7, the company had more than 50 loaded rail cars on site ready to be transloaded. The following day, at 3 a.m. in the midst of a snowstorm, the first trucks were loaded with sand for customers.

Because of a number of factors including the Marcellus Shale drilling industry, Reading & Northern has hired 10 new employees over the last two months. The company also recently purchased two new locomotives, 101 rail cars and six miles of short-line track between Monroeton and Towanda, where much of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale economic activity is focused, Michel said.

Copyright: Times Leader