Genesee & Wyoming Completes Acquisition of Heart of Georgia Railroad

DARIEN, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (G&W) (NYSE:GWR) announced today that it has completed its acquisition of the shares of Atlantic Western Transportation, Inc., parent company of Heart of Georgia Railroad, Inc. (HOG). Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

HOG was founded in 1999 and operates across the state of Georgia on 219 miles of track leased from the Georgia Department of Transportation. It connects with G&W’s Georgia Southwestern Railroad at Americus, Ga., and with G&W’s Georgia Central Railway at Vidalia, Ga. HOG serves an inland intermodal terminal at Cordele, Ga., providing five-day/week, direct rail service via the Georgia Central Railway to the Port of Savannah for auto, agricultural products and other merchandise customers. HOG has Class I railroad connections with CSX at Cordele and with Norfolk Southern at Americus and Helena, Ga.

HOG transports approximately 10,000 annual carloads of agricultural products, feed, fertilizer, and lumber and forest products, of which approximately 2,000 carloads are interchanged with G&W’s Georgia Central Railway. HOG will be managed as one of G&W’s Coastal Region railroads, led by Senior Vice President Andy Chunko.

About G&W

Genesee & Wyoming owns or leases 122 freight railroads worldwide that are organized in 10 operating regions with approximately 8,000 employees and 3,000 customers.

• G&W’s eight North American regions serve 41 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces and include 115 short line and regional freight railroads with more than 13,000 track-miles.
• G&W’s Australia Region provides rail freight services in New South Wales, including in the Hunter Valley coal supply chain, the Northern Territory and South Australia, and operates the 1,400-mile Tarcoola-to-Darwin rail line. The Australia Region is 51.1% owned by G&W and 48.9% owned by a consortium of funds and clients managed by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets.
• G&W’s U.K./Europe Region is led by Freightliner, the U.K.’s largest rail maritime intermodal operator and second-largest rail freight company. Operations also include heavy-haul in Poland and Germany, intermodal services connecting Northern European seaports with key industrial regions in Germany, and regional rail services in the Netherlands and Belgium.

G&W subsidiaries provide rail service at more than 40 major ports in North America, Australia and Europe and perform contract coal loading and railcar switching for industrial customers.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding Genesee & Wyoming's business which are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the most recently ended fiscal year.