Family owned farm, ranch and cattle equipment maker Priefert has chosen a new facility in Boise near the airport, motivated in part due to the proximity to the railroad: a spur will connect the facility directly to the line, meaning they can offload from the trains into the facility directly.
"Once we developed and looked into the railing system that you guys have," said Eric Bell, the manager of the new manufacturing plant in Boise, "we found that we can not only be very competitive and pass that value on to our customers, but we can also grow the area. We can grow the NorthWest area," where their hands had been tied previously.
Since Priefert moves a lot of steel, having a manufacturing plant with its own spur off the railway made perfect sense, says Bell.
Idaho has seen recent improvement in its rail system, with Union Pacific spending some $135 million in maintenance and improvements since 2011 -- including bridges, not just roads.
Union Pacific has 848 miles of track in Idaho, and more than $80 million dollars is spent on payroll in our state with approximately 886 employees.
Union Pacific says the first rails in Idaho were built by John Young, the son of Mormon President Brigham Young.
