Regional railroad Reading & Northern Railroad achieved record-breaking carload volumes and revenue in 2015.
R&N, which handles a diverse mixture of commodities including wood pulp, paper, metals, food products, plastics, forest products, chemicals, minerals and anthracite coal (it’s known as “The Road of Anthracite”) in 2015 handled 28,940 carloads, a 19% increase from the previous record achieved in 2014—more than 4,500 carloads.
This 19% carloadings growth helped R&N attain record-breaking freight revenues that exceeded past revenue levels by more than 30%. R&N said the growth is largely from new transloading and warehouse businesses.
R&N said it did well in all commodity areas except business related to the Marcellus Shale. Like other railroads in the region, R&N saw its Marcellus Shale business fall by two-thirds. “However, unlike other regional railroads, which saw their overall traffic decline, Reading & Northern was able to achieve spectacular growth due to its emphasis on customer service and its entrepreneurial focus,” said CEO and owner Andy Muller, Jr. “Our record breaking volumes for 2015 prove that our decision to offer our customers guaranteed service windows does grow the business. And in 2016 we are taking this commitment one step further by improving our already excellent service by hiring more crews and running more trains, and faster.”
“We could not have achieved this growth without the hard work of the 200-plus men and women in the Reading & Northern family” said President Wayne Michel. R&N increased employment almost 8% in 2015 and is hiring more employees at this time. Michel also stressed that much of the railroad’s growth was due to taking entrepreneurial risks to develop more traffic, “In 2015, we got into the warehouse business in order to serve customer demand. This follows our recent successful move into the transload business to better serve our customers. In addition, some of our customers needed to store their railroad cars as a result of market shifts. We reopened long-dormant tracks and were able to store thousands of cars.”
Reading & Northern sister company Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway also had a record year as more than 100,000 visitors rode on one of its many steam or diesel-powered excursion trains.
In recognition of the railroad’s focus on customers and entrepreneurial initiatives, Railway Age named Reading & Northern its Regional Railroad of the Year in 2015, the third such time it has been so-honored.
Reading & Northern Railroad, headquartered in Port Clinton, Pa., is a privately held company serving more than 60 customers in nine eastern Pennsylvania counties (Berks, Bradford, Carbon, Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Northumberland, Schuylkill and Wyoming). It has expanded its operations over the past 20-plus years, and now operates both freight services and steam and diesel powered excursion passenger services. It owns more than 1,000 freight cars and employs more than 200.