Union Pacific Railroad, BNSF, Arkansas Midland Railway and Amtrak serve the Little Rock area with freight and passenger rail service.

The Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR)
North Little Rock locomotive overhaul and maintenance facilities are the largest of their kind on UPRR and among the largest in the world. The Jenks Shop locomotive complex employs more than 1,100 skilled and dedicated workers, who perform heavy maintenance on a fleet of 7,000 locomotives that pull more than 2,000 trains each day throughout the western two-thirds of the United States.

The shop complex was named after Downing B. Jenks, former chairman of Missouri Pacific Railroad, which joined the UP family via merger in 1982.

The majority of the complex is dominated by the main Jenks Shop heavy locomotive repair facility, with more than 272,000 square feet of space, 227,000 of which is devoted to the main shop floor.

In a tight cluster to the north and east of the main shop are five other structures and several designated areas, each with a special purpose, including a material storage yard, storage tracks, a load test facility, a shutdown/start-up area, a prewash building, a tank farm and a pumphouse, plus a locomotive paint shop, wheel shop, turbo repair shop and electric shop. Union Pacific's Jenks Shop complex includes the main shop building for heavy locomotive repair, a system wheel shop, turbo repair shop, paint shop and electric shop.

The Phase I service facility services about 2,000 locomotives each month, dispensing 4 million gallons of diesel fuel and 30,000 gallons of lube oil. The Phase II Running Repair Facility repairs about 700 locomotives per month with just over 300 employees.

BNSF Railway
serves more than half the states in the U.S. In addition, it has operations in two Canadian provinces and rail and intermodal connections with Mexico, Asia and Europe.

BNSF has close ties to the states it serves. In fact, many of its nearly 400 predecessor railroads included states in their names. As the rail industry grew across the U.S., states were important building blocks in the emerging rail system.

Today, states provide far more than geographic boundaries. Elected, appointed and civil service leaders play an active role in setting public transportation policy. BNSF Railway works to keep these officials up to date about the vital role it plays in intra- and interstate commerce.

State and regional strategic transportation plans include responding to future highway construction limitations by using the opportunity to increase rail transportation solutions without major and expensive capital investments.

Using assets for the greater public good, while preserving the high value to customers, is central to bringing progressive and resourceful solutions to the people BNSF serves.

The Arkansas Midland Railroad (AKMD)
operates four separate former Union Pacific Railroad branch lines in the state of Arkansas. Formed in 1992, the AKMD now handles over 35,000 railcars annually over more than 112 route miles of track and directly serves industries in North Little Rock, Hot Springs, Jones Mill, Malvern, and several other communities in the state. Handling from single cars to unit trains, local switching service is tailored specifically to customers’ needs.

Operations serve over 52 customers in a wide variety of industries – including the world’s most efficient aluminum rolling mill, numerous chemical plants, lumber mills, saw mills, a pulp and paper plant, a stone quarry, a plastics extruder, cable manufacturers, feed mills and hatcheries. These industries produce products moving to destinations all over North America and the world. Interchange connections with the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) at North Little Rock, Malvern, Lexa and McGehee are seamless and the excellent relationship between AKMD and UP allows customers to be more competitive in the marketplace by receiving improved local switching service plus the superior market coverage of UP, the largest railroad in the United States.

In order to allow the many local industries that do not have direct rail access to take advantage of the railroad’s service, AKMD also provides warehousing, trucking services, indoor and outdoor storage facilities, and transloading services through our affiliate, Railroad Distribution Services (RDS). Commodities such as lumber, plywood, OSB, aluminum, fertilizer, drilling mud, and plastics are handled by RDS.