The South Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad receives an award for its effort in helping Bartlett Grain locate its new soybean facility in Southeast Kansas.
According to Watco, the railroad received a Business Development Award from the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association.
After nearly five years of planning and work, Bartlett opened its new soybean crush plant along the short line in mid-2024. The SKOL was involved from the beginning, even helping locate the site for the $375 million facility. Watco also helped design and build and provides unit train service to a grain storage facility on the Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad.
The SKOL and Watco teams worked to secure federal and state grants to help fund upgrades across the line to handle the traffic for the new plant. Over the past several years, the team upgraded the rail to 286,000-lb. capacity, rebuilt bridges, upgraded crossings, constructed a new 8,000-foot siding and more.
SKOL General Manager Jerry Waun, Sales Manager Casey Harbour, and Vice President of Railroad Sales Brett Jensen accepted the award last month at a conference in Denver.
