Trains can travel hundreds of miles at a stretch, but occasionally they need to refuel, swap containers, and undergo maintenance. Sundt is building one such facility for Union Pacific that will serve as an important point for the movement of goods along the 800-mile Sunset Route from Los Angeles to El Paso. Called the Santa Teresa Rail Facility, it is located on a 2,200-acre parcel of desert in New Mexico about two miles north of the U.S./Mexico border. The nearest sizeable city is El Paso, Texas, about 10 miles to the east.
The $400 million, state-of-the-art rail facility will incorporate fueling areas, crew change buildings, an intermodal block swap/switching yard and an intermodal ramp. Our $172 million heavy civil contract is for the project’s second phase, which involves constructing 26 buildings, installing a number of underground utilities (water, electric and sewer), concrete paving, and constructing the fuel facility and connecting it to a new fuel line. The team’s first and most significant construction milestone is the completion of the fuel facility by December 31, 2013.
“The fuel facility portion of the project is fairly complex because of the amount of mechanical piping involved,” said Sundt Project Manager Eric Weston. “We’re self-performing the majority of that work, which amounts to about $18 million of our overall contract. Sundt’s own crews are also performing the concrete paving – a package worth about $14 million.”
The project is scheduled for completion in 2014.