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Patriot Rail Corp. is spending $3.3 million to build tracks and a transloading facility, and obtain equipment for the Louisiana and North West Railroad (L&NW). The 40-acre transload facility is slated to open on Oct. 5.

In 2008, Patriot Rail purchased the 68-mile L&NW, which connects the Haynesville shale formation — one of the nation’s largest natural gas fields, covering parts of southwestern Arkansas, northwest Louisiana and east Texas — with Class I mainlines operated by Kansas City Southern and Union Pacific Railroad.

Over the past year, the short-line holding company has been developing the transloading facility near Interstate 20 in Gibsland, La., to make it easier for energy producers to transfer bulk cargo from rail to trucks, Patriot Rail officials said in a prepared statement. The facility will enable the producers to receive carloads of sand used in the natural gas extraction process, and ship out carloads of crushed rock used in aggregate, concrete or cement mills, they said.

The facility is projected to handle more than 5,000 carloads in its first year of operation, according to Patriot Rail, which owns and operates 12 short lines.