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Grain Train

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Eric in IL

Well-known Member
Almost all of the local small town grain elevators were built next to a railroad. None, that I am aware of, use the rail system to transport their grain to a major terminal.

Rail transport certainly seems more efficient to me. What am I missing ?
 
A lot goes by rail in central In. yet. Don't know where it goes,usually headed west.
 
Time and convenience.

Rather than making the effort to perform long and intermediate term planning, most American businesses think only in the short term even though doing so nearly always results in greater costs over the long term.

Dean
 
The grain co-op in our town of just over a hundred people must NOT have gotten your memo! They load 115-car unit trains from this facility.

<img src = "http://www.bnsf.com/customers/grain-facilities/elevators/bin2/pix0902.jpg">
North Central Grain
 

Nothing...

Except that most grain moving by trains (at least, out our way) are "100 car" loads.

None of our small elevators could hold that much or ship that much, so they are becoming obsolete and being bypassed. I'm sure other folks know way more than me about it, but I think the 100-car terminals can have pretty strict guidelines and are penalized pretty heavily if they can't load up or offload quick enough, also.

There have been several "100 car" facilities put in or expanded in the past few years around here (TX/OK Panhandles). As far as I know, they mainly accept cheap corn from back up in the midwest for our feedyards and ship out our local wheat to California millers...


Howard
 
Several years ago, a number of small elevators in eastern Washington had (or shared) Kenworth tractors adapted as "locomotives" to pull grain cars up the rail spurs to central collection points. Don't know if they're still doing it.
 
The railroads like to pick-up at least 65 car loads, most little elevators don"t have that long of sidings. So their freight rate is higher than trucking it. No one picks the higher option.
 
So Bob, I'm assuming that terminal takes in grain from all over the county, probably a couple of counties. Does the grain get moved from smaller elevators (like the one at Rolette) by truck or is there a shortline railroad that brings the grain from smaller elevators? I remember seeing a shortline railroad down around Jamestown about 10-15 years back.
 
Big rail roads only want to do the big jobs these days. Around New York state there are a number of small, privately owned railroads that actually pick up and deliver from customers so businesses can send smaller shipments. The small railroads then had off the loads to the big guys. If you don't have a small railroad near by then you probably don't have rail service even if they go right by your place.
 
that looks like the old Bungee elevators in Galveston before they blew up back in the late 70's
 
I don't think any corn leaves this part of Iowa on rail because of the ethanol plants. Now the cars leave town with DDG's or ethanol. Beans still go out on the rail. It's 100 unit trains and the cars have to be loaded in, I think, forteen hours after the cars arrive or the railroad gets grouchy. Then the loaded cars sit there for days waiting for the locomotives to come back. Go figure!

Elevators that used to load 50 car units have quit loading trains so now it's trucked 875 bushels at a time 30 miles more-or-less to an elevator that loads 100 cars. Where's the efficiency in that? Why can't an elevator that owns two branches 30 miles apart on the same rail line put together two 50 car trains, one from each location, instead of hauling it down the road in trucks to one loading facility that loads 100's? Duh! Jim
 
Bob,

I've been by there on Highway 66 many times. Most recently was last October. Does the old elevator in the background of the picture still operate?

Ron
 
A subject near and dear to my heart.

Not just grain, but a whole lot of other goods (and people) should be moving by rail. It"s efficient, has its own right of way, safer than the highway. Just think of how much less traffic congestion we would have if we put goods currently transported over highways back on rail!

There is definitely a new interest in railroads with the fuel prices going up and up and up. I bet that a whole lot of folks are really sorry that all those rails were taken up back in the 60"s and 70"s!
 
There's NO rail anymore to the substations at Rolette and Perth.

A shortline, Northen Plains Railroad, was operating the old Soo Line to the east, they more or less shut down that spur when when the elevator got in bed with BNSF and built the 115 car circle track.

We were told BNSF negotiated a sealed deal with the co-op manager for special rates once the circle track was put in. So now, when BNSF decides yo move on beyond that they are pretty much at the railroad's mercy.
 
They are still using the 3 steel bins at the north side. The main elevator will be destroyed within the next year or so.
 
Man, that's really the end of an era. I recall when there was service along both the Soo Line and the Great Northern tracks in Rolette. There was even an elevator on each track, until the Soo Line elevator burned in the mid-60s. First really big fire I'd ever seen.
 
Lots of valid points below, plus electronic banking.
Local small -medium elevator has to pay farmer when grain is received. Also has to pay interest on that borrowed cash until delivered to large terminal or processor & receive payment from there.
Accumulate enough in bins to fill a truck, ship it out, deliver to processor in a day or less. With modern banking get their money back in a day or two.
Or- hold up to a week or longer to accumulate enough to load a train, up to a week travel time, then get paid.
Interest on hundreds of thousands of dollars adds up to big money over a year.
Quick turn over = less interest on borrowed money, more than makes up for lower freight costs of using rail.
Willie
 
BNSF abandoned a 100 mile grain line in eastern Washington, claiming it wasn't profitable so the State bought it and contracted out the operations. They justified it by how many trucks it would keep off the roads and I think it saved some of the smaller elevators. Now it has sparked interest from other rail users. I think if these big corporations would plan better and pay attention to details and communities, they could have kept the line open. All they want is easy profits.
 
We truck alot of grain because trains aren't available. Lots of times we have to wait for a train to show up before we can transfer grain to the terminal.
 
(quoted from post at 09:38:42 03/18/11) There's NO rail anymore to the substations at Rolette and Perth.

A shortline, Northen Plains Railroad, was operating the old Soo Line to the east, they more or less shut down that spur when when the elevator got in bed with BNSF and built the 115 car circle track.

We were told BNSF negotiated a sealed deal with the co-op manager for special rates once the circle track was put in. So now, when BNSF decides yo move on beyond that they are pretty much at the railroad's mercy.
Click to expand...

The grain elevator could have most likely wanted the BNSF for their carrier because of their faster turnarounds.
Most shortlines or class III railroads generally don't have pickup and destination points on their own particular line. They likely have to hand it off to a class I railroad's interchange tracks at some point in time.

Sometimes interchanges are a fast handoff, but many times they are not. Sometimes it's days before it's picked up by the other railroad. And then it may be just a local that picks the cars up and then carries them to a terminal where the thru trains are made up.

Whereas the BNSF may have it arranged where the thru train picks up the cars at the elevator, adds them to their train, makes a quick air brake test and goes right on toward their destination. This may or may not be the case in your situation, but I've seen it done many times for shippers.

And if BNSF is doing that, they can save the cost of having a local pick the cars up and carry them back to the terminal and switching them into a thru train being made up. Thus maybe being able to pass some of the savings on to their customers in negotiating lower rates.

They in turn might still have to hand them over to another railroad, but still quite a bit of time has been saved.

Personally, I would like to see everyone get a piece of the pie. And sometimes it seems unfair that things are the way they are. But with business &amp; stockholders, it seems it's all about the money.
 
big fred,

I assume you grew up in the Rolette area. I grew up in the Rocklake area and both Great Northern and Soo were in that area as well. There were 2 large grain elevators there, both served by Great Northern. The farthest north point on that line was Hansboro. If you ever looked at old maps of counties and townships you see grain elevators (essentially little towns) about every 6 miles or so. That was probably the distance that most horse drawn grain wagons wanted to travel. Of course that would be in my grandparents time.

Dad had trucks and the farthest he hauled grain was about 3 miles to Crocus. But some area farmers hauled 10 or so miles.
 
Sixty trains a day roll through our town, of coarse everything I need is on the other side of the tracks. Same thing with work,I have to drive 2 miles out of my way to avoid waiting at the crossing. They build trains about fifty yards from work and sometimes they block the road for twenty minutes or more. I'm all for using more trains but lets put in some more over/underpasses before we get to carried away. I hate to think of the hours I've wasted waiting on those darn trains.
Nate
 
We travelled thru Saskatchewan this fall. Still lots of those old style elevators around on the rail lines. Don't know if they are still used. From thge time where I could see one on the horizon it was 10 miles away. Think of leaving your farm with a team & wagon of grain for the elevator you can see in the distance, knowing it will take you all day to get there and back. Wow!!
 
Six miles spacing made it out so there was one in every township. That spacing scheme goes all the way back to when the railroads were originally built and the government was encouraging settlers to file for homesteads. The railroads got land from the government to offset the expense of building the railbeds. They must have gotten extra land for the purpose of selling up a new town in each township. I wonder if it didn't have something to do with how far a steam engine could travel before it needed to take on water, too.
 
They've abandoned and tore up about all the rail lines in our middle of the state. Now that it's gone, it will be very difficult to reestablish rail service again. Especilly as right of ways are absorbed, returned to previous ownerships, and turned over to public as recreational facilities, (rails to trails). Some of the right of ways were to return to owners (heirs) when the railroad abandoned them. Others were sold to new ownership. Not going to be easy to start up again.
 
Hi, here in central nebraska i see grain trains all the time, mostly going west to the coast, i haul grain for my local coop mostly for the trains, i think last year 60-70 trains were shipped, most of them are 100-110 car unit trains
 
Cargill has two rail loading stations here, one 14 miles away, the other about an hour. A lot of grain from Western MN goes by rail to the Pacific. Either case, either 54 or 108 unit trains. Loading time is limited, and activity is intense.
 
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