Last week, BNSF Railway Co. reduced its rates for domestic and export wheat moving eastbound from origins in Montana, Minnesota, and North and South Dakota to Minneapolis and Chicago.
For example, the railroad cut the per-car rate to move grain from Wolf Point, Mont., to Chicago by $273.
“These reduced rates make it more cost-effective for our grain growers to move their products to the eastern hubs and mills — we don’t ship a lot of product east,” said Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) in a prepared statement.
In addition, BNSF plans to upgrade a branch line between Great Falls and Fort Benton, Mont., along which Columbia Grain will build a 110-car shuttle loader facility.
“This is a classic example of how a competitive rail climate can lower rates for producers,” said Montana Grain Growers President Jon Stoner.
The rates in question are for a two week period January 14 through January 31.
Coincidentally, and I am sure it is just a coincidence, there is no market for Montana wheat in Minneapolis, or for anybody else’s wheat at the moment; no bids at all on the commodity markets there. With no one buying, you might wonder who will be shipping, regardless of the rail rate.
And if anyone can show me a waybill of Montana wheat ever going to or through Chicago on purpose, I’ll pay $50.
Reminds me of Milwaukee Road’s application to reduce the tariff on Yak Fat. Five railroads filed formal objections.
Sounds like somebody was bored and wanted to issue a press release. And somebody else fell for it.
Oh yes, and the new “rate” designed to offer a headline for a “reduced” rate to a non-existent market is still 125% above the BNSF system average for 0113710 Wheat for the distance hauled. The former rate, which will take effect again February 1, was only 130% above the system average.
I would venture to say that this must be a manifestation of humor in BNSF’s rate dept. Sort of like chalk golf balls at the company outing.
Or the BNSF thumbs its nose at in Montana.
" RATES! RATES! You want a stinkin’ RATE! ?
We’ll give you a stinkin’ RATE!
Senator Burns needs all the headlines he can get that will deflect attention from his relationship with Jack Abramoff. I don’t suppose BNSF did this apparently otherwise meaningless two-week rate reduction for that reason…would they?
I’d be a lot more excited if BNSF proposed to fix the out-of-service branch between Helena and Great Falls; restored Great Falls-Ft. Benton-Big Sandy-Havre service.
I thought it was Senator Byron Dorgan (D - ND) who needed the diversion from the Abramoff taint, seeing as how he is number two on the Abramoff scale! I see them North Dakota rates are going down for a few weeks as well!
Reminds me of a (bad) old joke. A farmer went into a John Deere dealer, and asked the price on some JD accessory for his tractor. The dealer said “$1400,take it or leave it.” The farmer fumed “the dealer down the street has them for only $1200”. The dealer asks why doesn’t the farmer just head on down the street and buy it? “Well, the farmer says, they’re out of stock right now”. “Of course!” says the John Deere dealer.“When we’re out of stock,our price is only $1000”.
How much of Montana’s eastbound export wheat goes by barge down the Missouri River to St Louis and on to New Orleans? A recent PBS documentary talked about the river being channelized all the way to Fort Benton in a series of projects over a period of years, but I seem to recall that heavy commercial barge traffic didn’t really pick up until sometime after WWII. Was this also a factor in the downfall of the PCE and/or the BN merger?
Historically, 97% of Montana’s export wheat goes to Portland.
Very little river traffic of any kind uses the Missouri in Montana.
Montana wheat did travel by river, but on the Columiba River via truck to Lewiston, Idaho. At its highest, that was about 5% of Montana wheat.
Part of the PCE’s downfall was carrying too much wheat.
Milwaukee had good heavy rail, much more of the 131 lb stuff than, say, Great Northern, but it was jointed, and the 100 ton PS-2 covered hopper cars – so many of them that Milwaukee was practically speaking operating unit trains – ripped it apart.
The official head of navigation on the Missouri is a Sioux City. Some people talked about making the Missouri navigable all the way to MT when the ***s were built but it never happened. In practice the Missouri above Kansas City is a very marginal barge route. Grain moves out of the area by barge but a great deal also moves by rail. Also, unlike MT, there are a great deal of grain proceesors along the upper Missouri.
BNSF should reconstruct the entire alternate route from Havre to Helena, if for no other reason than to have a secondary route for High Line traffic available the next time one of the corn shuttles mysteriously derails near the Glacier Park bear habitat!
Better yet, instead of going all the way down to Helena and then doubling back to Mullan Pass via MRL, BNSF should instead build a 1% cut-off between the summit of the ex-GN Butte branch near Silver City and the east portal of MRL’s Mullan Tunnel. After that, it’s all water level grade to Sandpoint ID.
But of course, if BNSF did that then how could they pay for the capacity improvements to the LA-Chicago speedway for all those Asian imports?
Oh darn. I’ve got to correct another “Typo” by this individual.
The Milwaukee didn’t file the infamous rate on “Yak Fat”, a trucker did.
As context, in the bad old days of failed economic regulation, common carriers had to file their interstate rates with the Interstate Commerce Commision. The ICC could disallow a rate. Basically, if a carrier wanted to reduce a rate other carriers could object and haul the reducing carrier before the ICC where it would have to “Prove” the new, lower charge to be reasonable, compensentory, and in the public interest.
Of course, no government commission can possibly be capeable of determining what is reasonable, compensentory and in the public interest - but that didn’t stop 'em for a while.
So this trucker files a reduced rate on something or other, and some railroads filed an objection with the ICC. (Can you imagine the government stopping a