RailNews

Wyoming Railroad Contractor Convicted of Fraud

John Rimmasch’s Wasatch Railroad Contractors charged the National Park Service for work on a passenger car that was never completed. Photo Courtesy of the National Park Service. 

Wyoming Railroad Contractor Convicted of Fraud

By Justin Franz 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The owner of a well-known and now-shuttered Wyoming railroad contractor was convicted this week on five counts of wire fraud and one count of knowing endangerment following a jury trial in U.S. District Court. 

According to court documents, Steamtown National Historic Site had contracted with John Rimmasch and Wasatch Railroad Contractors in 2016, to restore and remove asbestos from a former Central Railroad of New Jersey passenger car. That work never happened as promised but Rimmasch filed invoices totally tens of thousands of dollars anyway. 

Rimmasch could spend time in prison following the conviction and will be sentenced in July.

In August 2016, NPS and Wasatch entered into a contract to perform work on CNJ coach 1021. The contract was valued at $828,871 and Wasatch had the approval to invoice for work as it happened, meaning it could get paid as progress was made. In October 2016, the car arrived at Wasatch’s facility in Wyoming. Starting in December 2016, Rimmasch began to invoice the Park Service for various amounts even though little or no work was being done to the car. As part of the contract, Wasatch had also stated that it would find a third party to conduct the asbestos removal because it was not certified to do such work. However, according to charging documents, in late 2016 and 2017, Wasatch employees did do some asbestos remediation, releasing toxins into the air and “knowingly placing other persons in imminent danger of death and serious bodily injury.”

This is not the first time Wasatch has ended up in legal trouble. In 2020, it was forced to pay the Big South Fork Scenic Railway more than $730,000 following the failed operational restoration of Kentucky & Tennessee 14.

Wasatch is now closed and has filed for bankruptcy. 

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to note that the second lawsuit was over a Kentucky & Tennessee locomotive, not the Louisville & Nashville locomotive. We apologize for the mistake. 

This article was posted on: April 15, 2022