july2017

208 209 and switching needs, with over 50- plus miles of track that is in operation for storage of up to 2,500 railcars. Amiee Martelle is President and CEO of RVPR, and she first spoke with Business View Magazine back in May 2016.We caught up with her recently and learned that RVPR had just ac- quired an additional 20 acres of land to add to its 337 acres on a railroad right-of-way of 664 acres. The new acreage will make available an addi- tional 250 rail car spots, with work on THE RIVERPORT RAILROAD the new storage area to begin this summer. And Martelle adds that, within the next five years, she’s hoping to have up to 3,500 railcar spots available for rent. Last year, Martelle said that their rail yard was totally full and that there was a waiting list to get in. A year later, that has not changed. Some of the stored cars at the yard are oil tankers, and they, too, are still sitting in storage, as the depressed nature of the oil sector has not changed much, either. Meanwhile, River- port gets the daily storage rent. Martelle notes that some of those oil cars are getting cleaned which suggests that they will not go back into the oil service any time soon. “They will poten- tially be leased for a different commodity,” she explains. “Chemicals for food grade items, such as corn syrup. Any liquid commodity can go in those cars –we’ve had tequila cars here in the past.” RVPR still has its two tenants on the property: Rescar and TLC Rail Services. Rescar provides railcar repair, interior coating repair, railcar cleaning, testing and inspection, billing, and NDT (non-destructive testing) services. TLC Rail Services provides railcar-to-truck transloading,