Regional RailRoad of the YeaR:
aRkansas & MissouRi Sporting equipment and infrastructure quality worthy of a much bigger railroad, Arkansas & Missouri is seeking namesake-based customers of all kinds as it nears its three-decade mark.
A
rkansas & Missouri Railroad may not be a Class I rail leviathan. But when it comes to infrastructure, it’s a class act, ramping up for a bigger and brighter future. Springdale, Ark.-based Arkansas & Missouri (A&M), founded in 1986, operates on 140 miles of track, 134 of those miles its main line from southwestern Missouri through western Arkansas; with its Fort Smith, Ark., operations flirting with the Oklahoma border. That mileage is protected by continuous welded rail, rated at 286,000 pounds GRL, cleared for speeds of 49 mph and, unlike perhaps many smaller railroads, cleared for doublestack container traffic. The railroad’s equipment is equally up to date. A&M 26 Railway age april 2014
typically rosters 500 freight cars and, in 2013, acquired three EMD SD70AC3 locomotives to handle its growing business. Spurred by $23 million in such investments during 2013 and continuing into this year, A&M, in the words of Chairman Reilly McCarren, is intent on “upping its game,” as it has for 27 years, as it continues “to introduce new companies to the business-friendly environment of Northwest Arkansas and southwestern Missouri,” part of what McCarren describes as “a regional transportation enterprise.” Such can-do determination, backed by solid capital investment and a vision of truly regional scope, earns A&M Railway Age’s 2014 Regional Railroad of the Year award.