The new 367-acre industrial park just northwest of Newton offers something very few industrial sites across the country can. Newton Rail Park surrounds the Iowa Interstate Railroad’s Newton Rail Terminal, and Iowa Interstate Railroad President and CEO Joe Parsons says that gives park occupants access to coast to coast rail service through all six Class 1 railroads, such as CSX Transportation, Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, and BNSF. 

“If you locate a facility on the Iowa Interstate Railroad and you need to ship to the East Coast one week or to the West Coast the next week, we give you that optionality where it provides maximum competition between the Class 1’s to buy to get to your business. So that’s really the key differentiator for a customer who wants to locate in an industrial park. Not to mention all the pluses that come with being in Newton and Jasper County and the Des Moines work watershed.”

Parsons says about 90 acres within the park are ready for development now, while the rest of the park will get the needed infrastructure sooner rather than later. Iowa Interstate Railroad and the Jasper County Board of Supervisors worked together on a public-private land deal that just closed, to acquire 294 acres of farmland for the industrial park. The rest of the park area was already owned by the railroad. Iowa Interstate Railroad President Joe Parsons talks more about Newton Rail Park on today’s Let’s Talk Newton.