JACKSONVILLE BUSINESS JOURNAL

By MAURICIO LA PLANTE  December 18, 2024

After experiencing more growth in 2024, Pinsly Railroad Company aims to tap into the series of businesses sprouting in Florida’s Panhandle through increased  investment and improvement of its largest rail line.

The Jacksonville-based short line railroad holding company rebranded as Pinsly from Gulf & Atlantic Railways this year.

“Our goal is to continue to grow sustainably, both organically,” said Pinsly Chief Commercial Officer Cassie Dull told the Business Journal. “The railroads we currently own and operate continue to grow there, attracting new industries, new customers, continue to grow carload volumes with our existing customers, so that we would consider a kind of organic growth.”

“We’re also very interested in growth through acquisition, so adding additional short line railroads to the portfolio, we want those to be really solid operating assets, safe assets, solid infrastructure, good history of customer service, with the ability to grow and and we will do that through investment.

A focal point for Pinsly’s investment stretches hundreds of miles to the west of Jacksonville and is key for connecting businesses of the Panhandle to the rest of the country.

The Florida Gulf and Atlantic Railroad runs from Pensacola to Baldwin, and with 430 miles of track, it’s the largest rail line under Pinsly’s ownership.

It also requires the most capital. Dull said around $40 million has been spent on various improvements to the railroad over the past two years.

“The main purpose of that is, one, to create a railroad that will sustainably handle the growth and so get the infrastructure in place to a point where it can handle existing traffic,” Dull said. “We want to be in a position to attract them(businesses) to our railroad. So to do that, we’ve got to have the infrastructure in place to handle the 1,000, 5,000 hopefully 10,000 car loads that they want to ship.”

Funding supports the rehabilitation of 92 road crossings, 13 crossing signal upgrades, rehabbing of 63 bridges and 169 miles of track upgrades, according toa statement from Pinsly. In Tallahassee, Pinsly plans to improve 11 road crossings, and is set to complete seven this week.

The Florida Gulf and Atlantic track running through the mostly rural Panhandle is a key draw for many industrial businesses. From the Panhandle, Pinsly is able to connect to Class 1 Railroad CSX, transferring cargo to an expansive network throughout the U.S.

The Panhandle is poised for more industrial growth, Dull said, and Pinsly wants to make sure it’s a part of that.

“The counties and the economic development groups in the Panhandle have been really successful in trying to attract new industry,” Dull said. “There’s some state-level grant programs they’ve been involved (with), and we support that.”

The line already has connections to many Panhandle industrial parks currently in operation, with two significant ones being the North Florida Mega Industrial Park in Lake City and the Shoal River Ranch Gigasite in Okaloosa County.

Dull said teams from Florida Gulf and Atlantic and Pinsly will partner with the industrial businesses to develop conceptual drawings to submit for grant funding.

Pinsly continues to also expand other services, especially in integrating warehousing, reloading and distribution.

Dull said the company has seen success from the railroad and warehousing it acquired in Massachusetts last year and is looking to replicate that in places where it makes sense, including some sites off the Florida Gulf and Atlantic railroad.

Pinsly has railroads in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi and Texas under its umbrella as it continues to look for the right kind of acquisitions.

“I wouldn’t say we have a kind of a grid or a matrix on exactly what we want geographically or anything like that … we’re looking for existing solid assets in terms of the physical infrastructure operating practices, their safety record,” Dull said. “Those things are really important to us. The customer base is very important. Like I said, our goal is sustainability. So existing facilities that have been there a long time, the ability to grow, either through service or expansion. We’ll continue to look for that, but we’re not limited to where we’re looking or how big we’re looking.”