Green Eagle Railroad

The rail component is the piece most out-of-market buyers skip, and it is the piece most likely to decide whether Puerto Verde becomes an industrial corridor or just another bridge. Rail is what turned Laredo into an inland port rather than a toll plaza.

It is also the piece with the most organized local resistance, and the objections here are specific and not frivolous. If you are underwriting industrial land on the assumption that this alignment is fixed, read this page carefully.

What is proposed

Green Eagle Railroad, LLC — a subsidiary of Puerto Verde Holdings — petitioned to construct and operate approximately 1.3 miles of new freight rail connecting the border to Union Pacific track, as part of a proposed 20-mile trade corridor that would route trucks and trains around Eagle Pass and into Piedras Negras.

Short mileage, outsized consequence: it is the link that would make the Puerto Verde crossing a rail-served industrial proposition rather than a road toll.

The federal record, in order

The Board authorized construction over the Southern Rail Alternative — the environmentally preferred alternative identified by its Office of Environmental Analysis — subject to mitigation, with a status report due 22 October 2026.

Why approval is not a start date

Green Eagle told the Board it would not begin construction of the line absent traffic agreements with Union Pacific and BNSF. Those agreements are not in place on the record. The project also requires financing and completion of environmental mitigation.

For a capital allocator the translation is simple: a federal agency has said this may be built. Two Class I railroads have not yet said they will use it, and no financing has been documented. Those are the two conditions that matter, and neither is satisfied.

The opposition is organized and specific

At the Board's public meeting on the Draft EIS, roughly 90% of more than forty speakers opposed the project. The objections on the record:

• The alignment sits upriver of the City of Eagle Pass potable water treatment plant — the city's sole potable water source — and residents argued the Draft EIS would leave the City's water utility responsible for cleaning hazardous spills rather than the operator
• Hazardous-materials transport through the densely populated Seco Mines and Hopedale neighborhoods and the newly built Bass Subdivision, with limited evacuation time; speakers referenced the East Palestine, Ohio derailment
• Displacement of the existing Union Pacific line
• Pacuache Indian Nation Chairwoman Maria Torres cited protections for sacred burial grounds and artifacts
• Multiple speakers preferred alternative alignments — near the Loop 480 / US 277 intersection, or twelve miles north near Radar Base

How to price this

Community opposition of this intensity does not usually stop a federally approved project. It routinely delays one, and it occasionally moves an alignment — which changes which parcels matter.

That is the practical risk for a land buyer. A parcel sited on the assumption that the Southern Rail Alternative is permanent carries alignment risk, because two other alignments were formally proposed by the community and the project still needs agreements it does not have.

Related: Eagle Pass industrial land and the port of entry overview.

Common questions

Sources. Surface Transportation Board, Docket FD 36652, decision decided 22 April 2026 (published 24 April 2026); Draft EIS 14 March 2025; Final EIS 6 August 2025; greeneaglerreis.com; Eagle Pass Business Journal public-meeting coverage (April–May 2025). Verified as of August 2026; project statuses change and every figure should be re-verified before it is relied upon.