Reading & Northern (R&N) took delivery of its first unit train of frac sand on Sunday, May 5. Norfolk Southern Railroad delivered the train to R&N’s North Reading Yard where crews were on hand to receive the train and immediately take it to R&N’s sand storage facility in Pittston, Pa.
Last year R&N identified a regional need for a transload terminal and began the process of building a facility in Tunkhannock, Pa. The Tunkhannock Transload Terminal opened earlier this year for Marcellus and Non-Marcellus transload business. Frac sand is an anchor commodity of the terminal and R&N expects to move significant tonnage through Tunkhannock.
R&N, with its corporate headquarters in Port Clinton, is a privately held railroad company serving more than 70 customers in nine eastern Pennsylvania counties (Berks, Bradford, Carbon, Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Northumberland, Schuylkill, and Wyoming). It has expanded its operations over the last 30-plus years and now handles more than 34,000 carloads of freight and 200,000 excursion train riders over 400 miles of track.
R&N operates both freight services and steam and diesel-powered excursion passenger services, owns almost 1,400 freight cars, and employs nearly 300 dedicated employees.