April 2014
| Business World Magazine | 55
the line owns about 75 freight cars to meet
customer needs. The railroad now has more
than 30 employees, who really are the back-
bone of its success.
Business is now close to twice what it was
at the time of the Raleigh-to-Plymouth ac-
quisition, and the operation employs its own
equipment and track maintenance staff –
work which had previously been contracted
out. Major track projects are still done via
contract, but the bulk of the smaller con-
cerns these days are taken care of in-house
rather than with outsourced labor.
It’s a long way from where things started,
but the uptick in size hasn’t changed the fun-
damentals.
“The business was always there to be had,
if somebody wanted to have it,” Golden said.
“Our business plan was that we were going
to try and attract as much of it as we can, be-
cause that’s the business that’s there. We pro-
vided the service that we told people we were
going to provide.
“We told the customers, ‘We’re going to
provide you with regular service. We’re go-
ing to operate on these days. If need be, we’ll
operate extra trains, but if we have business
we’re going to run. We’re not going to just
let it sit there.’ We developed a service plan
to meet the needs of our customers. We told
themhere’s what we’re going to do, and that’s
what we did.
“And when they saw that, they realized
they could rely on us.”
