A bowling green company that supports the metals industry, is the first to use direct rail service at the Kentucky Trans Park.

Southern coil Solutions is a hub for aluminum and steel mills to store their material.

It then ships those metals to buyers like food packaging and automotive plants as needed.

The company can deliver up to 8000 tonnes per day across North America.

We are heavily manufacturing, so we're twice the national average of manufacturing locally because we're within a day's drive of over 65% of the U.S.

population.

And this was a gap that was noticed by a local entrepreneur who filled the gap.

And so it's a great win for our region and for our local businesses to see an issue that was kind of missing in our ecosystem for economic development related to manufacturing and to fill that locally with a local investment.

The rail access is via the Bowling Green Eye to spur in the Kentucky Trans Park.

Our Laura Rogers talks with Southern Coil Solutions about logistics and efficiency, and tonight's business segment.

Mark Loy is president and co-founder of Southern Coil Solutions, located there at the Kentucky Transport and Mark.

First, let's talk about what you do there.

You're a transload facility.

Can you explain daily operations at Southern Coil?

Yes.

Currently, one of the aspects of our facility is that it is a fully automated facility.

So our Transload facility is doing rail and truck.

Currently our partner on the rail side is CSX.

And our facility, because there is not a lot of human interaction, can unload and load both truck and rail fully automated without any interaction with the individuals in the plant.

So always activity going on.

It sounds like southern coil solutions.

That's correct.

We're getting material from as far north as Michigan, and we're getting as far south as Alabama and as far east as south Carolina.

And these are metal coils.

So aluminum steel.

And these are used in what industry.

So primarily our inventory from our customers being the aluminum mills and steel mills would be primarily on the aluminum side to be food grade.

Right.

So going into Coca-Cola, truly is Budweiser and so on.

And then on the automotive side, we have, Ford, Toyota, BMW, Mercedes for aluminum, automotive exposed.

And from the integrated steel mills, we have material that it's just kind of used for automotive frames or car parts in general.

And so let's talk rail access.

I believe this became operational near the beginning of the year.

How has this increased your capabilities?

I think our visibility to our customers has increased in the fact that now they have an option for rail.

So typically coming from the traditional steel mills up in the north, trucking was your only viable solution.

But now, with the facilities and services that we offer, customers now have the option to purchase more material on a larger scale.

And then the, economics kick in of shipping it via rail, and then they can save money that way.

And then is it also saving money for the company?

Is is increasing your efficiency using rail as opposed to just trucking?

And I think on the rail side, what we can do is typically a rail car might have 5 to 7 coils in it depending on the size of the coils.

And let's say a truck maybe can only handle one large coil or maybe 3 or 4 coils.

So yes, by handling those volumes, we can gain efficiencies by bringing in one railcar, having 5 to 7 rather than one truck having 3 to 5 coils on it or just one.

And it's my understanding this the potential for rail access has been there for a long time, but no company has yet utilized it.

What moved the needle for Southern Coil Solutions to say, okay, we're going to capitalize on this and we're going to start using this rail spur.

I think over the 15 years, perhaps more of the trans part that's been around, I think the growth within the trans Park has been quite tremendous.

So we have companies that use aluminum.

We have companies that use steel in the trans park.

So I felt that with with the option for us to gain that service, that we would sort of, you know, under the principle of if you build it, they will come.

And that's kind of what's happened here is that companies have learned of our services, learned of the economic advantages of rail, and then being able to take advantage of that.

So for us, it's like we just felt that we were able to offer a service and customers would come and that's what's happened.

You are transporting this across North America and into Mexico and Canada.

There's a far reach here very much.

Right.

We're getting material from Canada in the near future, and we'll be shipping down in Mexico near future as well.

All right.

We appreciate it so much.

Thank you.

Thank you Laura.