Eagle Railcar Services

Project Description

Eagle Railcar Services acquired, remediated and renovated the former B&O Railroad Servicing facility, with 10 miles of track and 200,000 square feet of buildings located in rural Washington, Indiana (pop, 12,089), into a full-service railcar service center. The existing facility suffered substantial environmental contamination under its prior ownership and Eagle improved the facility to comply with all appropriate operational and health safety codes. The project provides services to the railroad industry and companies that transport via railcars, including comprehensive general shop services, railcar repair and maintenance, cleaning, painting, lining, heavy wreck damage repair, Tank Car Requalification, Tank Car Modifications, trans-loading/transfers, and railcar storage and mobile repair to railcar owners and lessees.

The project retained 12 jobs and created 138 new, full-time quality jobs and 50 construction jobs. 80% of new jobs are anticipated to be filled by low-income persons or residents of the surrounding low-income community. 100% of full-time jobs created have wages that exceed this rural area’s average living wage of $9.86/hour. Eagle arranged for significant training opportunities for employees, including classroom and field training provided by both in-house resources and third-party providers, as well as working with the Vincennes University’s Workforce Development department to fill the various employment needs of the project.

The project originally was not financially viable due to the cost of environmental site clean-up and the acquisition of specialized business equipment. New Markets Tax Credit financing provided the additional capital necessary to fully remediate the site and develop a full service facility creating quality jobs accessible to the low-income, non-metropolitan community.