Monmouth alum Hoth's Burlington railway carries everything from bombs to Blue Bunny

by Barry McNamara

Monmouth, Ill. (02/26/2026) — Andrew Hoth's company may operate a short line railroad, but they're in it for the long haul.

That was one of the messages the 1995 graduate shared as he returned to campus for the second straight year to speak to Monmouth College's "Midwest Entrepreneurs" class. The Burlington Junction Railway executive told the type of story that fits neatly into the college's long tradition of alumni who built unexpected careers by following opportunity wherever it appeared.

"You know you're an entrepreneur," he told the students last spring, "when you stop on the way to the office to buy toilet paper and then sign the employee paychecks when you get there. As an entrepreneur, you wear all the hats."

Solving problems

Hoth wears plenty of them. His official title is corporate relations lead, but the job stretches far beyond what fits on a business card. He spends his days keeping current clients satisfied, finding new ones, assessing risk and making sure capital is allocated wisely.

"There's two rules of money," Hoth told the students on his most recent visit. "Cash is king, and once you spend it, it's gone. Don't over-leverage yourself. If the bank called all our notes tomorrow, we could pay them. That makes it easier to sleep at night."

One way to keep clients satisfied is to provide solutions. "It's not about us," said Hoth, whose company bills itself as flexible and reliable shipping and receiving experts. "We want to help you fix your problem."

Hoth and his team provided one such solution for the Army Ammunition Plant in nearby Middletown, Iowa, pointing to the savings they'd generate from transporting their steel from Scranton, Pennsylvania, by rail rather than truck.

"Heavy stuff is better by rail," said Hoth. "We helped the Army move it, so we solved a problem AND we got a loaded revenue car."

Being a short line, BJRY doesn't carry that load the whole way but, as Hoth noted, "We're the first mile or the last mile of every move."

That includes everything from bombs to Blue Bunny ice cream, as BJRY also works with the LeMars, Iowa-based company, which is all the way across the Hawkeye State on its western border.

"Our pitch line is, 'Do you want a railroad running your railroad, or do you want a bank running your railroad?'" said Hoth. "If you're not approaching a business or entity and telling them your story, somebody else is. I pride myself on seeing new opportunities and taking the right risks. You have to understand your customer's supply chain to know how you can serve them better."

How it began

After graduating from Monmouth, Hoth earned a law degree from the University of Iowa and returned to his hometown of Burlington to practice law and work in the family business, which had an unlikely beginning. When the Rock Island Railroad collapsed in one of the largest bankruptcies in U.S. history, its assets were liquidated. Hoth's father - an attorney with no railroad background - decided it might be interesting to buy a few miles of track around Burlington. In 1985, BJRY was born.

Class I railroads -- the long haul carriers - often find it too expensive to deliver freight directly to nearby factories and warehouses. That gap created a niche for short line railroads - small operations only a few miles long that handle the first or last leg of a shipment. Once the Hoths owned track, owning a locomotive or two made sense, and soon the company added locomotive service and repair to its offerings.

What began as a small short-track operation shuttling freight between the local BNSF yard and Burlington area customers has grown into a system that moves about 43,000 railcars a year. Today, BJRY owns 50 locomotives, and 90 employees keep the system running, from locomotive cabs to maintenance shops to office desks.

Lessons for students

In addition to his thoughts on money and on solving problems, Hoth shared that leaders will have different styles. His father, who founded BJRY, "was a risk taker. I never won our discussions at the end of the day."

Hoth's father, who died in 2017, hit upon success with BJRY, but he didn't with a television station he tried to start in Burlington. That illustrated another valuable business lesson.

"Dad didn't have a railroad background or a television background, and with the TV station, he didn't get good people around him," said Hoth.

He also shared with the students the importance of delegating to those good people.

"You want to think about making sure that more than one person knows how to do everything," he said. "It takes some effort to let go of that control."

Eventually, said Hoth, the right talented people around you are on board and invested, and "the founders get to make themselves irrelevant."

Hoth's job demands a wide range of skills - legal, financial, logistical, interpersonal. It's also the kind of work, he suggested, that a liberal arts education provides valuable tools to excel: thinking broadly, solving problems and adapting quickly.

And Hoth does all those things well.

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