Genesee & Wyoming restarts salt shipments for long-time New York mining customer (6/8/2001)

After a six-year absence, Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (GWI) in early June resumed moving rock salt from an upstate New York mine owned and operated by American Rock Salt — the short-line holding company’s largest customer from GWI’s founding in 1899 until the mine collapsed in 1995.

GWI currently moves salt at a rate of 750 carloads per month; the company plans to move 1,200 monthly carloads in the third quarter.

To jump-start the rail service, American Rock Salt recently purchased a fleet of 600 new Trinity Industries-built rail cars, which GWI would manage.

With a projected 2.5 million-ton annual production level, the mine — the first built in the United States in more than 40 years — would accommodate about 80 years of salt reserves covering 10,000 acres of mineral rights. The salt primarily is used to de-ice roads throughout the Northeast, and is distributed by rail and truck.

"We are confident in the mine’s long-term role as a primary supplier of rock salt to the Northeast market," said David Collins, senior vice president of GWI’s New York-Pennsylvania Region, in a prepared statement.

Source: Progressive Railroading Daily News