Michigan-based Federated Railways Inc, an affiliate of Federated Capital Corporation, has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Rail Logistics LC, including its Cold Train express intermodal service.
The new subsidiary will be called Federated Cold Train LLC and will conduct business as Cold Train. The company will maintain its current management team and staff, including Steve Lawson as president and chief executive officer, and will retain its current headquarters in Overland Park KS.
Federated Capital Corp’s holdings consist of a variety of service, leasing, and railroad assets including the Great Lakes Central Railroad Inc (GLCR), a 400-mile regional railroad operating entirely in Michigan, and Federated Railcar Inc, owner of a fleet of refurbished passenger cars.
Rail Logistics launched the Cold Train service in partnership with BNSF Railway from the Port of Quincy Intermodal Terminal in Washington state in April 2010, and then more recently began a similar Cold Train service from Portland OR. A recent study of 29 western US and Canadian locations with intermodal terminals (including the Port of Quincy Intermodal Terminal) ranked Quincy WA as the lowest-cost location for operating a distribution center or a warehouse.
Since the Cold Train refrigerated intermodal freight service was launched, it has grown in popularity with shippers in Washington/Oregon and the Midwest and East Coast.
In 2013, Cold Train expanded its Washington-based refrigerated container fleet to more than 400 Hyundai 53-foot containers while adding several new destinations on the East Coast. As a result, Cold Train now delivers refrigerated cargo from Washington and Oregon to these 20 states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida. Furthermore, Cold Train has regular express service from Washington and Oregon to Toronto, Ontario.
Cold Train also hauls frozen and refrigerated foods and some dry goods back from the Midwest and East Coast to Washington and Oregon. In other words, Cold Train ships loaded or full containers both directions to maximize use of equipment, which helps reduce costs and provide an inbound and outbound service for shippers and receivers.
The combined assets of Federated Capital Corp and Cold Train will provide a variety of freight transportation options for shippers, growers, producers, packers, food processors and retailers alike.
Louis P Ferris, president of Federated Capital Corp, said, “The addition of Cold Train to our portfolio of service- and asset-based companies will allow Federated Capital Corp to add the fast-growing ‘domestic intermodal’ sector to its freight rail transportation portfolio. Federated Capital plans to add a minimum of 1,000 containers to the Cold Train fleet over the next five years, bringing the fleet to 1,400 containers.”
For more details, contact Steve Lawson at 509-731-4734.
