52 Business View Magazine - May 2016
“The other thing that’s real critical is, as a short line,
we’re very unique because we connect with four other
railroads,” Sabin adds. “A lot of short lines may have
only one or two connections to the outside world; we’ve
got options for our customers that allow them to le-
verage the routes, and the rates, and the service that
they get from the larger Class 1 railroads.” The IANR’s
own 26 locomotives, and another four that it leases,
connect with virtually every rail system in the nation.
There are direct connections to the Union Pacific, the
Canadian National, the Cedar Rapids & Iowa City, and
the Canadian Pacific. These connections make it pos-
sible to reach the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the
Kansas City Southern, CSXT, the Norfolk Southern,
and the Iowa Interstate.
Investing in the railroad’s infrastructure is an ongoing
process that has also contributed to the line’s suc-
cess. In the past ten years, the IANR has spent more
per mile in capital improvements than most of the
country’s Class 1 carriers. “We’ve got a fairly substan-
tial amount of money put into the track,” says Sabin. In
fact, by the end of 2015, the company had spent over
$100 million along the line in increased yard and side
track capacity, 100,000 main line wood ties, 65,000
steel ties and 42.6 miles of new CWR (Continuous
Welded Rail). Welded rail is normally laid in quarter
mile sections, eliminating joints in the rail; it dramati-
cally reduces the risk of derailments and maintenance
costs.
And Sabin says that even more money will be spent
over the next several years. “We’re focusing our atten-
tion on spending more money on infrastructure and
more capacity,” he says. “Also, there are a number
of low-density lines nearby that are owned by Class 1
carriers. We hope that we can work with them to ex-
pand our network and provide a lower cost operation
to some of those lines, and grow the business like we
have the Iowa Northern, and to share in that new pros-
perity with the owners.”
