The Nittany & Bald Eagle Railroad, along with the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad, recently received the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association’s 2016 Railroad Marketing Award at the association’s annual conference in Washington, D.C.
The award is the result of an effort between both railroad’s marketing teams to honor the recent development of rail movements between Graymont Inc., a lime and limestone product supplier in Pleasant Gap located on the Nittany & Bald Eagle Railroad line, and the Homer City Generating Station in Homer City and located on the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad line.
The SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority partnered with Nittany & Bald Eagle in the project, which helped Homer City Generating Station become one of the cleanest coal-burning power plants in the nation.
Graymont mines high-grade limestone from the Valentine formation at its Centre County plant. Thanks to this project, lime is now shipped to Homer City as an essential ingredient for the station’s new emissions scrubber, greatly reducing its pollutants.
In order for Graymont to get this business, more railroad yard space was critical because of the anticipated high volumes of rail traffic. To meet that need, the SEDA-COG JRA secured a $250,000 Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Rail Freight Assistance Program grant and contributed $189,356 of its own dollars to build 1,600 more feet of railroad track on JRA property. Within its complex, Graymont also built an additional 2,800 feet of new railroad track and made other related improvements. Both track projects were finished last fall.
It was a five-year effort for Nittany & Bald Eagle and Graymont to secure the new business. The rail cars of lime will originate on the Nittany & Bald Eagle Railroad before being handed off to Norfolk Southern, which interchanges the rail cars to the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad for final delivery to the power plant.
Nittany & Bald Eagle Railroad is a 70-mile short line that serves the communities of Lock Haven, Tyrone, Bellefonte, Pleasant Gap and State College. The railroad is the private contract operator of the tracks owned by the JRA.
