GAINESVILLE, Texas — BNSF Railway has broken ground on the rail link that will connect Camp Howze Industrial Rail Park to its mainline, a construction milestone that turns the northwest Gainesville rail park from a certified site with plans on paper into an active build with a named tenant and a service date.
BNSF confirmed the groundbreaking took place June 18, and the railroad has also disclosed the park's first customer for the first time: Buzzi Unicem Cement, a cement producer that will be the rail park's inaugural tenant.
"This project represents one of BNSF's most significant recent investments in North Texas," said Scott Bates, BNSF's vice president of economic development, in a statement. "By providing modern, ready-to-serve rail infrastructure, BNSF and Camp Howze are positioned to accelerate development timelines and attract the type of rail-served industries that strengthen local economies and support long-term growth."
What's changed since May
The Record first detailed the scale of development converging on the I-35 corridor in a May report, when Camp Howze was described as a roughly 480-acre project with construction underway but no rail-link timeline attached. Since then, three things have moved from "planned" to "confirmed":
- The rail connection is now under physical construction, not just approved. BNSF's own announcement, not a developer's projection, is what's driving this update.
- The park now carries a specific acreage figure of 489 acres and a stated capacity for more than 7 million square feet of future industrial development — larger than earlier estimates.
- Buzzi Unicem Cement is named as the first tenant, the first time a specific company has been tied to the site.
Direct rail service is targeted for the second quarter of 2027, with BNSF saying service will expand as customer demand grows. The build also includes a transload facility of more than 30 acres for truck-to-rail and rail-to-truck transfers, plus a planned 200,000-square-foot freight forwarding facility — both pieces of the logistics infrastructure that make the park attractive to companies beyond a single rail customer.
Who's involved
BNSF's announcement credits the project to a partnership among Camp Howze Development Partners, the City of Gainesville, the Gainesville Economic Development Corporation, Cooke County, and North Central Texas College — the same coalition that backed the tax increment reinvestment zone financing the park's public infrastructure.
Why it matters locally
A rail link under active construction, backed by a railroad's own capital commitment and a named paying customer, is a materially different signal than a certified site awaiting tenants. For Cooke County, it moves Camp Howze from the "likely to eventually happen" column into the "happening now" column — with a concrete 2027 service date the county's workforce, housing, and infrastructure planning can build around.
The Record will continue tracking Camp Howze's progress, along with the H-E-B supply chain campus in Valley View, the Pace Ranch development, and the TxDOT I-35 widening, as part of its ongoing coverage of the corridor.
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