Boatright Companies plans to expand into Chilton County, Alabama

By Michael Tomberlin | The Birmingham News

Birmingham's Boatright Cos. plans to expand into Chilton County with a $40 million crosstie plant in Clanton that will create 60 jobs.

Though the deal has not been finalized, Shane Boatright, chief executive of Boatright Cos., said he hopes the project will come together so the plant can create jobs and produce railroad timbers for the industry.

"After meeting with the city officials of Clanton, we are excited about the opportunity to put people in their community to work, as well as help American railroads," he said in an interview Thursday.

Boatright is considering a 70-acre site in the Chilton County Industrial Park off U.S. 31. The industrial park is served by CSX Railroad.

More details on the project will be revealed if the deal is completed, Boatright said.

Plans for the Clanton project come just less than five months after Boatright announced plans for a $25 million crosstie plant in Carbon Hill in Walker County. That facility is expected to create up to 40 jobs initially.

Boatright Cos., which is headquartered in Inverness, operates a number of railroad-related subsidiaries, including Boatright Railroad Products, which makes crossties for tracks on mainline and shortline railroads.

The crosstie operation is based in Wilton near Montevallo in Shelby County.

The company has four other subsidiaries covering multiple facets of railroad operations and Boatright has said the company is aggressively seeking expansion through new plants and acquisitions. Service Industrial Rail Car repairs railroad cars, Boatright Safety Solutions distributes safety supplies and Boatright Vegetation Management Co. controls plant growth along railroads. The latter is the company Boatright started straight out of college 20 years ago.

Boatright Cos. owns a shortline railroad, an operation called St. Mary's Railroad in St. Mary's, Ga., that moves nuclear ballistic missiles in and out of the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay.

Boatright now has operations stretching from Alabama into Georgia, Michigan and Indiana. The growth is rapidly adding to the current 200 employees.