The railroad maintenance company that is considering opening a plant at the Chilton County Industrial Park hopes to have an announcement with more details next week.

Boatright Enterprise, Inc., of Birmingham, wants to build a facility to make railroad ties on 40 acres at the industrial park off U.S. 31 between Clanton and Thorsby.

“They are in the process of working out a deal with all the parties involved,” said company spokeswoman Krista Conlin. “We hope to have something to announce as early as next week.”

The $40 million railroad tie plant would create 60 jobs. Usually made from wood in North America, railroad ties, also called crossties, are used as a base for railroad tracks. They help support rails and absorb train movement.

Boatright operates a similar plant outside Montevallo in Shelby County. The Montevallo plant employs 100 people and produced more than 800,000 crossties for Boatright last year.

The Chilton County plant also comes less than six months after Boatright announced plans to build a $25 million crosstie plant in Carbon Hill in Walker County that will create an initial 40 new jobs.