Iowa Interstate Railroads receives $31 million

Ethanol Producer Magazine
January 2009
By Ryan C. Christiansen
Web exclusive posted Dec. 21, 2008, at 12:08 p.m. CST

The Federal Railroad Administration has announced that Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Iowa Interstate Railroad Ltd., a subsidiary of Railroad Development Corp. of Pittsburgh, Pa., will receive a $31 million loan under the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing program to help finance the railroad’s recent purchase of 12 new 4,400-horsepower General Electric ES44AC Evolution Series locomotives, which have allowed the railroad to increase train lengths, tonnage, and operating speeds in its service to newly constructed ethanol plants along its line. The new locomotives are 18 percent more fuel efficient than alternatives and comply with all of the latest U.S. EPA requirements. The railroad received the new locomotives this fall.

Iowa Interstate Railroad expects to move approximately one billion gallons of ethanol per year from ethanol plants along its line in the near future. The ethanol plants that are currently producing along the Iowa Interstate Railroad line include the 37 MMgy Penford Products Corp. ethanol plant and the 420 MMgy Archer Daniels Midland Co. ethanol plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; the 110 MMgy Hawkeye Renewables ethanol plant in Menlo, Iowa; the 100 MMgy ADM plant in Peoria, Ill.; and the 100 MMgy Patriot Renewable Fuels LLC plant in Annawan, Ill. The ethanol plants under construction along the railroad line include a 275 MMgy ADM expansion in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and a new 110 MMgy Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy LLC ethanol plant in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

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