Railroad-Served Fertilizer Distribution center

Location: North Texas

TGB Group was hired by Crop Production Service, LLC (CPS) and Texas North Western Railway (TXNW) to provide the civil design for a new 27-acre industrial site for a fertilizer distribution center in the railway’s new Panhandle Logistics Park. The design would include a 17,500-square-foot dry fertilizer storage building, a 12,500-square-foot liquid/chemical storage building, and a 22,000-square-foot seed packaging warehouse building. Designs also were needed for an application building, a maintenance building and an office building.

Drainage, access and other project specs

The site called for a layout to connect to the Texas Northwestern Railway, a short line railroad located in the Texas Panhandle. The site design included grading and drainage for three storage tanks with capacities from 300,000 gallons to one million gallons and room for additional tanks. Also needed were two industrial entrances off a county road, a commercial truck scale and fencing for the entire property.

TGB’s duties included developing plans for site grading, stormwater detention and erosion control in accord with CPS and TXNW requirements and the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan. We also created designs for containment and more than 3,300 feet of railroad track for up to 12 cars at a time.

Special considerations had to be made for coordination with the short line railroad to ensure that the new spur met its standards. Railroad operations and proper drainage were maintained at all times throughout the project. To ensure that the work would be completed on-time and on-budget, our team coordinated site development activities with multiple contractors that provided various key services for the project.

Completion and approval

Our design was completed in the summer of 2017, after which the developer and short line railroad reviewed and approved our site plan. The project was designed to local standards; the rail design met American Railway Engineering & Maintenance-of-Way Association guidelines and standards. The developer required a fast-track design schedule for the project, and all timelines were met or exceeded in order to start construction that summer.

If you’d like to know more about TGB Group’s involvement in this project, please contact:

Mike Murphy, president, TGB Group: (832) 748-7603
Clayton Kendall, TNW Corporation, ckendall@tnw-rr.com