This should be straight forward for me to figure out but I’m at a loss. If there is a grain “growing season”, how can multiple railroads load daily grain trains even during off harvest times? I understand that some of the grain elevators out there have a tremendous storage capacity but we’re talking hundreds of thousands of tons of grain per day amongst the grain trains that run on the various railroads. Were does all this grain come from? (This question is so “nooberrific”…I know…[:D]).
Don’t underestimate just how much storage capacity there is. Farmers, CO-OP’s, elevators and grain traders store grain, in order to sell when the market is right.
I did watch a program once that stated that the U.S. grain belt alone (not including Canada, the pacific, and other areas) grows enough grain in one harvest to feed the entire world many times over.
i cant give silo figures but…ADM has 2 elevators in mid MI that CSX hauls out of…1 in Webberville and 1 in Grand Ledge…50-70 cars grain trains the norm…i was on the Lansing extra board and in one 2 wk period i was called for 16 u-man jobs to help the outbounds out and the inbounds in these 2…1 day stands out the most was called for 1am to work Webberville…TM called me enroute and asked if “…didnt mind a long day…I’ll take care of your milage”…meaning the milage claim for driving my own car…well i said sure…at 4am 65 cars out of Web. 530am 66 MTs in…at Grand Ledge 720am 55 cars out 50 in 10am 66 out at Webberville 40 in 50 out Grand Ledge at 1245p…tied my job up from home at 130p… the whole time both elevators had a quadzillion trucks lined up in all directions…i mean parked for miles and in one day i sent 236 loaded soybean cars to Newport News Va and had another 90 set for next day…granted the crews pulled 'em outa town i just helped but thats alotta beans…just here…and that goes on all thru the grain states…these big elevators do more then store it…certain grains need to have a certain mosture content before they can be shipped…local Ag. inspector is a busy man…the grains are dried in kilns in these bigger silo complexes…local farms from oneman mom and pop farms to multi-section mega farms truck their product to these elevators…a lot of what is shipped from this part of MI goes overseas
I know many local farmers who hold a part of their crop on their farm in their own silos , and watch the markets and sell to the local elevators when there is a good price .
csx runs grain trains over to and from the hamler ohio elevator.they can have the sidings on csx and the I&O full of grain cars.
stay safe
Most local farmers will have grain bins for drying and storing their harvest and then either contract out for delivery or hold fors spot selling.
Large grain operators will either be companies such as ADM, Cargill, and others or local co-ops, which are owned by local farmers. The local farmers then participate in the risk of contracts. Distribution of final profits are usually in the form of dividends at the end of the fiscal year.
Often you will see large grain elevators do not have enough storage capacity and will use giant tarps to store the grain. This is not as desireable as inside storage, but less expensive than constructing a new unit. Often these storage areas will have concrete flooring and the grain is covered with giant tarps.
A newer developement in grain handling is the flood elevators. These usually involve only short term storage and are a facility to quickly transfer grain into unit trains. These facilities often have a loop track capable of 120 cars. The empty unit train is operated (often by non railroad personnel) as each grain car is loaded. There are incentives for this type of operation in the form of lower transporation rates. Often the elevator is given a window to load the train, usually in the 16-24 hour range. Incentives are given based on loading in that timeframe.
I dont profess to be an expert on grain, either from a producer, marketer, or transporter and the above is subject to correction. It is based on a little knowledge in owning a small farm (rented out), having family in farming (including a brother in law who is a farmer, railfan, and member of a co-op), and reading a few on line railroad grain tariffs.
It would be very interesting for Trains to have a feature issue on the movement of grain, similar to what David Morgan did years ago on the movement of his new car, in other words trace the bushel of corn from the field to the destination.
ed
Last winter I hunted-down the Minnesota Prairie Line and caught them loading grain in Fairfax, MN on the old M&StL. It was -6F and windy at the time and the nicely-painted Red River Valley & Western GP was shoving a cut of 8 cars slowly under the chute as one worker stood on top the covered hoppers, managing the flow. Not a real safe job to do from what I saw. That was well past harvest time I know.
During and immediately after harvest, grain is temporarily stored not only in bins on the farm and elevators near town, but many modern elevators have built concrete pads, each one about the size of a football field, and grain is placed there. It is under tarps, and fans are used to force air into the pile to further dry it.
Here is a lousy picture of one such operation. This is corn storage. Note the size of the “mountain” as compared to the pickup in the left of the photo. There are 9 such piles at this site alone.
The “grain rush” is often thought of as a late-summer-into-autumn event because that’s when most grain crops are harvested and begin showing up at the elevators and into hoppers. Speaking from the Inland Northwest, it’s interesting to observe how combines begin working some areas by mid-July, while others aren’t touched until September. Like raindrops feeding into small streams feeding into large rivers, the grain rush here begins with increasing truckloads of grain accumulating at elevators, and then hoppers accumulating along branch lines that feed into main lines. (Not to forget those unit train loading loops at places like Ritzville, WA.) But several months after the last field has been harvested, the grain is still piled up and being shipped out by rail. Export grain typically runs heavy well through the winter, and often into early spring. Here we are in mid-May, and BNSF and UP through Spokane are handling grain from east of the Rockies like it’s the height of the rush. Poor harvests in Australia and Asia coupled with increased demand for food grains in those areas, plus the weaker U.S. dollar against foreign currencies, (and there’s that corn-fuel debacle, too) have made U.S. wheat and corn worth their weight in gold. Result: more American grain is being exported than we’ve seen in quite some time. That’s earning our farmers the best money they’ve seen in decades, but their income is being tempered by soaring costs for fuel and fertilizers. And now the people who monitor our ag business are sounding the alarm that the U.S. stockpile of food grains has reached a dangerously low level. But the trains keep rolling west to port…
You guys are awesome. I think the mountain of grain from Dakguy says it all. Also grain (literally seeds) has a long storage time. I can easily see unit trains running daily from stored grain supplies alone for most of the year.
Also, Bruce Kelly wrote:
“…(and there’s that corn-fuel debacle, too) have made U.S. wheat and corn worth their weight in gold. Result: more American grain is being exported than we’ve seen in quite some time. That’s earning our farmers the best money they’ve seen in decades, but their income is being tempered by soaring costs for fuel and fertilizers.”
…and it’s a darn shame to. I have great respect for farmers and to see any of their profits minimized for whatever reason is tragic.
dont know how to link it but heres an overhead view of the Webberville grain complex…theres a string of cars on 1 track to clue the size…the silos are atleast 150 ft tall and atleast 30 ft in diameter and theres 24 of them…the 2 large squares are the extra storage spoke of in someone elses post here…these 2 are framed and shingled…and huge
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=42.665715&lon=-84.194168&z=17.8&r=0&src=yh
An absolutely humongous amount of grain is used for animal feed in this country. All this is from memory and the numbers may be wrong, but here’s a small example. My brother works for a small chicken processing company. Their elevator at the headquarters gets corn in 10-car blocks, one block every 2 weeks. Within the last 5 years the company built a larger elevator at another location; this elevator can handle 20-car blocks IIRC. Don’t know how frequently they get a block of cars. Multiply this by all the other poultry companies, and all the feedlots for hogs and cows, and there is quite a bit of grain going to feed animals.
At average U.S. corn yields, the old 100 ton covered hopper would hold only 20 acres of corn,(3000 bushels or so), 60 acres of soybeans to fill the same car, and about 40 acres of wheat. If you can find the USDA’s crop planting estimates, you can see ther is a LOT of grain produced yearly. Alittle more figuring will show that these trains are not haulling as large a percentage of the crop as your original question hinted. Throw in one year of bumper crops, like last year’s corn crop, and the numbers get huge fast.
If you’re really interested in the effects of grain in the US get a DVD called King Corn, which documents corn from growing to harvest to market. It was also shown on PBS a few weeks ago (the DVD has some good extra features that weren’t shown on PBS). Extremely funny, yet it’s very informative and doesn’t pull punches.
For me it was a real eye opener. They showed the effect of a bumper harvest in Iowa. After giant coop silos were filled, huge mountains of the stuff were shown outdoors, without covering. Passing freight trains looked like little toys.
Corn as grown in the US isn’t a food it’s an industrial commodity. Cattle can eat it for about 120 days, any longer and they develop acidosis and their insides burn out. Much of the corn crop goes into making fructose, which became a substitute for sugar in the '70s, I believe. When you eat something with regular sugar it eventually sends signals to the body that you’ve had enough. Fructose doesn’t. My neighborhood, the Upper East side, has about a 2% diabetes rate. About 20 blocks north, in Harlem, the rate is over 30%, an astounding rate. The main difference is in the consumption of prepared foods such as soda. Drinking soda is like drinking liquid candy.
Citation 2 (Click on the maps to see incidence of diabetes in NYC)
NY Times Article
I would be a little more specific on the word “grain” Americans seem to use corn as grain Canadians use wheat, as do northern state Americans, there is a big difference in the product, and can anything be more obscene than grinding up food to make gasoline? remember only about 1/3 of all the oil in North America has been discovered so far, this figure increases every year.
A few years ago, when corn was $2 and change a bushel, a popular item in the Midwest was corn-fired stoves for supplemental heating. Perhaps that qualifies?
Very little corn is consumed directly by humans in the US anyway. The majority of our crop is consumed as animal feed and only indirectly consumed by humans. The exception to that is high fructose corn syrup, which many health authorities will tell you to stay away from. Some of the crop does leave the places where it is grown by a combination of trains and barges to the export terminals, but again the final use tends to be animal feed.
However, labeling the use in making ethanol “obscene” is a value judgment I do not share. I don’t think that is any more obscene than using rice, hops and barley malt to make beer. Did you know that Budweiser is the #1 consumer of our rice?
thank you. i learned something about grain. i model a little grain on my rr. good ideia about the article.