Farmers complain about BNSF rates to STB

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/13031461.htm (Link)

Farmers air complaints about BNSF

Associated Press

BIG SANDY, Mont. - Grain growers angry about BNSF’s freight service and rates shared their gripes with a federal official, who responded that absent a formal complaint, there is little his office can do.

More than 100 people gathered at Big Sandy High School on Friday for an appearance by Doug Buttrey, vice chairman of the federal Surface Transportation Board. Gov. Brian Schweitzer asked Buttrey to come to Montana and hear concerns about Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., based in Fort Worth, Texas.

A similar meeting took place later Friday in Scobey.

During the 2 1/2-hour Big Sandy session, one farmer after another complained about eroding service and high freight rates.

“We can only decide a case that has been filed with us,” Buttrey responded.

Montana Senate President Jon Tester, a Big Sandy Democrat and farmer running for the U.S. Senate, said people in Montana agriculture “cannot wait a long time. If we file a case and it drags on … we don’t have the pockets that the railroad has” to sustain the case.

Buttrey said there are guidelines under which a mediator can hear small rate cases.

BNSF spokesman Pat Keim said rail rates respond to market conditions, and since 1981, rail prices have lagged compared to other farm expenses.

A consultant, Terry Whiteside, said grain growers in Montana and North Dakota encounter the nation’s highest freight rates because the growers are served by only one railroad.

Montana’s rail system has shrunk since deregulation began in the 1970s. The state has 2,000 fewer miles of railroad now than in 1975, said *** Turner of the Montana Department of Transportation.

“In Montana, 94 percent of the rail system is controlled by one railroad,” he said.

Farmers have seen their cost of doing busin

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Yeah, and?..

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They must be engaging in a “Frame up” with all those “Framers”…FOFLMAO…

LC

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Farmers frame Futuremodal’s forecast of future financial failure…

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'scuse me, gotta go pick myself off the floor![(-D][(-D]

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Farmers have been complaining about rail rates ever since there have been rail rates.

And politicians have been using the issue to get themselves elected for the same time frame.

And jounalists just love this, and any other, “controversy” to write about. It sells papers.

“A consultant said?” Consultants will generally say anything you pay them to say and “prove it” with a bunch of BS numbers - kind of like lawyers.

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well not only in the upper midwest but around here in ohio too.elevators and farmers are saying there arent enough grain cars at the elevators.the beat rolls on
stay safe
Joe

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…and rail industry propagandists.

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Yep, just post something about railroad rate gouging, and the ilks will slither up from the cesspool of arrogant idiocy.

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For the record, the same article appears in the Missoulian:

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2005/10/30/breaker/doc436405640a4cc947450090.txt

There is one additional paragraph in the Missoulian version missing from the dfw version, next to the last paragraph above:

"I’m ***ed tired of subsidizing the railroad in Montana. Every time they shut down another elevator, more trucks run over our highways. Whenever they ship grain from Iowa, BNSF is the conduit to subsidize other farmers.”

Seems some folks think it is the railroads that are being subsidized, not necessarily the highways.

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Shows what you know…ilk don’t slither…we shake, rattle and roll…and the plural of ilk is…ilk, not ilks.
Kinda like one deer, two deer, or a bunch of deer, but no deers.

[:D]

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Why don’t they ship Union Pacific?
Allan.

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The fram filter must have missed the title.

Suitable for framing.

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Its past time to give Montana to Alberta.

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Sounds like BNSF needs to learn how to work with small customers better, I think this is one of the reason they are not earning cost of capital like Norfolk Southern. (which is pretty good at serving small customers)
I’ll tell BNSF a business secret , small customers often grow into big customers. BNSF actually gave an award to the managers, who have been implementing these grain policies, that have done nothing but anger farmers, elevator operators, state legislatures, federal representatives, the public, and could fuel the case for reregulation. Reregulation would wind putting the rail industry back into the dark ages, so I hope BNSF somehow wisens up.

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I don’t see how small farmers, who are small customers, are ever going to grow into big customers. The amount of land in Montana that is arable is finite, and you can produce only so much wheat from that land. Crop yields will not expand ad infinitum, a farmer will have good years and bad years, but there is a limit to what will be produced in a good year.

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Small farmers virtually died twenty years ago after the credit crunch in the early 1980s. They are usefull when agri-business is after a political payoff such as a subsidy from the local evil railroad.

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Talked with a couple of Framers today and they were saying with winter fast approaching, they need to hurry up and get this new house sheathed and enclosed. [:D]

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It’s not just the farmers complaining. I’ve seen a number of articles about loggers siting the same complaints, car shortage/higher rates. Only difference is that CN is the naughty railroad in the Upper Michigan.
http://www.miningjournal.net/news/story/1023202005_new01-n1023.asp

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You can see from this thread alone that the historical arrogance of the rail industry is alive and well, and if BNSF provokes re-regulation, it will be no surprise to anyone … except the rail industry.

Best regards, Michael Sol