Port Terminal Railroad Association

Company History: Opened in 1924, the PTRA today serves 226 customers on 154 miles of track on both sides of the Houston Ship Channel in Texas. PTRA has seven yards with a total capacity of 5,000 cars and 20 bridges. Traffic, which typically runs about 2,500 cars per day, includes chemicals, coke, high-wide loads, automobiles, grain, fuel, food products, plastics, steel and industrial products plus intermodal traffic. The PTRA locomotive roster consists entirely of one model, the MK1500D genset switcher built by Motive Power Industries using components of old GP7’s and GP9’s (most from Conrail.) PTRA has 32 of these engines. For most of its history, PTRA was a paper railroad with the connecting railroads serving customers on the line directly. PTRA gained their own identity with the arrival of the first MK1500D’s in 1996. Today the company is jointly owned by the Port of Houston Authority of Harris County, Houston Belt & Terminal Railway, Union Pacific, BNSF, and Kansas City Southern.

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