When Glenn Hulcher responded to his first derailment he didn't know he was revolutionizing an industry.
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About Hulcher Services
Hulcher Services - Company History
In the early 1940s M.L. Hulcher founded a pipeline-laying company in Virden, Illinois and expanded the business in 1946 to include the installation and repair of underground gas transmission lines.
In 1963 a chance conversation between a railroad official and Glenn Hulcher at a coffee shop planted the idea that would change the railroad contractor industry.
At that time railroad companies provided their own people and equipment to service derailments. During this conversation, Glenn suggested that he could clear derailments more quickly and efficiently with the equipment in his father's pipe-laying company.
Two months later, he would get the chance to prove his claim. A train derailment occurred near Virden, Illinois but on this particular day the railroad had a very difficult time getting the equipment to the derailment scene. The railroad needed to open the rail line quickly! The railroad official called Glenn and the Hulcher company responded to the derailment, arriving on the scene and clearing the derailment before the railroad crews could even arrive..
The Hulcher company was called for more and more derailments, and eventually, railroad companies came to realize that using outside firms or train derailment contractors like Hulcher Services was in their best interest from a cost, safety and efficiency standpoint.
As Hulcher Services grew, the company diversified and adjusted to the shifting business environment to include Railroad / Mechanical Services, Engineering Services, Transfer / Load Adjustment, Environmental Services, and Disaster Response. In 1985 the corporate offices were moved from Virden, Illinois to Denton, Texas, just 38 miles north of Dallas.
Expansion continued throughout the United States, and in the late 1990s divisions were established in both Canada and Mexico. In 2006 Hulcher expanded the transfer and load-adjustment service with the acquisition of North American Recovery Services of Houston, Texas and Richard Allgood Contractors of Fort Worth, Texas.
In recent years Hulcher has added a host of services in the Maintenance Services and Positive Train Control (PTC) categories.
Over the years the company's innovations have continued, as Hulcher has helped to pioneer such ideas as winch-mounted sidebooms and track loaders for railroad services, padded sideboom tracks, thumbs on excavator buckets and the hi-rail, rear-controlled vacuum truck. Most recently Hulcher has created their own patent-pending Dozer Rake, a device that streamlines and improves the service of ballast leveling.
Today, Hulcher Services has more than 750 employees and 35 divisions in the United States, Canada and Mexico. We continually make substantial investments in both buildings and equipment to provide the superior service that Hulcher Services' customers have expected.
Glenn Hulcher has retired and is no longer involved with the operations of the company, but his vision for Hulcher Services remains: Hulcher Services IS the industry leader for derailment response and the premiere total services contractor for the railroads and industry.
MORE ABOUT HULCHER SERVICES
| About Hulcher Services Overview of Hulcher Services, Inc., the premier total service contractor for railroads and industries including grain, coal, ethanol, frac sand, steel, environmental consultants and trucking / intermodal. |
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