(The following article by Dan Piller was posted on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram website on february 27.)
FORT WORTH, Texas — Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway said Thursday that it will buy 6,000 grain-hauling cars from Trinity Industries of Dallas.
The order will prompt the reopening of Trinity’s plant in Saginaw, which was shuttered in 2001 during a slump in the rail-car business.
Trinity officials could not say how many workers will be needed for production or whether additional hiring would occur. The plant employed 205 workers when it closed in September 2001.
The cars will be manufactured, at least initially, in Saginaw and at a Trinity plant in Monclova, Mexico, according to Trinity officials.
The cars will replace older rolling stock in BNSF’s fleet of grain-hopper cars, now at 26,000 cars. BNSF, which serves the Midwest, is annually the nation’s largest grain-hauling railroad.
“We appreciate the opportunity to continue our role as BNSF’s partner in meeting the needs of grain shippers,” said Trinity Rail Group Chief Executive Mike Flannery. He said Trinity had a backlog of more than 12,000 rail-car orders at the end of 2003.
BNSF spokesman Richard Russack said the company needs the new cars because of increased demand for its grain-hauling services.
The new cars will have more capacity (286,000 pounds versus 263,000 pounds in most BNSF grain cars), and thus will be more efficient, he said.
The so-called hopper car has replaced the boxcar as the vehicle of choice for grain hauling. The hopper is loaded from the top.
The cars will be delivered to BNSF over six years, beginning this year. BNSF, which has its headquarters in north Fort Worth, serves the western two-thirds of the United States from Chicago to the West Coast and Texas and the Gulf Coast.