Grizzly Oil Sands Rail Terminal

Challenge

As one of the largest landholders in the oil sands industry, Grizzly Oil Sands wanted to expand its operations to capitalize on the benefits of shipping crude oil by rail to the U.S. Gulf Coast from its location in Alberta, Canada. The decision to ship by rail rather than by a planned oil pipeline would give the company more control, flexibility and potential to generate profit.

It would need to design and build a facility to load crude oil into railcars to be shipped by Canadian National Railway (CN). But any crude oil loading operations had to work with an existing gravel offload and storage terminal. Furthermore, staying on schedule would be crucial. The project timing coincided with an oil boom, so it was imperative that the project stayed on schedule to avoid losing upcoming slots in the busy schedules of numerous contractors.  

Solution

Grizzly Oil Sands partnered with SEH to design the Windell Rail Terminal, an innovative facility with unique operations to load crude oil onto rail cars. Starting with concept development, the SEH team provided extensive design services that led to several design alternatives for a rail loading facility with five truck-to-railcar loading stalls. A total of 8,700 ft. of track was designed that included 11 turnouts and one mainline turnout.

The SEH design team addressed railroad track alignments and profiles, site grading, drainage, erosion control and storm sewer, including a lined stormwater pond. When an adjacent gravel company added a large-diameter culvert under the proposed track, the SEH design team responded quickly by providing coordination with CN, Grizzly Oil Sands, the contractor and the gravel company.

The SEH design team’s quick reaction to changes during construction kept contractors working efficiently to ensure that construction would remain on schedule.