In 2013 Silgan Specialty Packaging christened a short, two-mile railroad spur that continues to provide benefits to a world well beyond this little track of metal. Silgan Specialty Packaging has received the resin pellets used in the manufacturing of their plastic products via rail for decades, but the nearest depot was two miles away and the pellets needed to be off-loaded and then trucked to the plant. This resulted in approximately 750 semi-truckloads of resin pellets making that roundtrip journey each year.
The ride might seem short, but add in the time to load the semi-trailers, get through the local traffic, and then work their way through Silgan Specialty Packaging’s receiving docks and it all adds up to a significant amount of time, emissions, and congestion.
By building the railroad spur Silgan Specialty Packaging eliminated the issues brought on by this last segment of the resin pellet journey. There are 3,200 fewer truck traffic miles, hundreds of hours of related delays, and less pollution in the world today.
