i work at a bird store and i love trains so i was wondering do freight trains ever carry bird seed?
anyone have any pictures ?
Inadvertently, I’m sure, as well as squirrel food. Grains leak from hoppers, so you will usually find a nice population of squirrels and birds scarfing on, say, spurs to feed mills, like in the Central Valley of CA and between Riverside and Perris. I would not be shocked to hear of loose car shipments of seed.
Yes, the pigeons around work really appreciate us. And we have a couple of hawks that appreciate the pigeons (but not well enough).
But isn’t most birdseed a mixture of several different things? I have seen carloads of sunflower seeds, and I’m sure that other types of seed are carried in other locales. But I would expect the birdseed components, whatever they are, to be carried to a processor, where they’re mixed and bagged, then shipped in either box cars or truck trailers.
Short answer: I have no idea!
Milo (basically pre-historic corn) is the base millet for bird seed around here and it was cut months ago. They are still cutting corn in the fields now. Sunflower seeds are also done or the year and were cut back in September or earlier.
Actual, factual answer, I have no idea.
But based on normal railroad logistics as I know them, I’d be comfortable saying that you probably won’t see hoppers full of the usual “mix” of birdseed such as you buy at the store in a 10 lb bag.
As MC points out, however, some or all of the components may very well travel by rail to the mills where the products are prepared for consumer use.
It’s possible that the packaged products may travel by rail, but I’d tend to lean toward truck transportation, especially since any individual retail outlet would be unlikely to need a carload…
We used to handle it in TOFC service on the ICG. I remember it being a good, steady volume. I think I recall it originating in N. Dakota on the Soo. It was bagged.
Other unusual stuff we hauled: Stuffed animals made in St. Louis for carnivals and Great America in Gurnee, IL. Kingsford Charcoal (very seasonal). Weber Grills (moved in the direction opposite the charcoal). Empty beer cans south, full beer cans north. RCA TVs.
Heck! If we hadn’t lost the meat business to the truckers - we could have stopped the trains and had a nice party.
Sunbird Sunflower Seeds is based in Huron, SD. They are located on an ex-GN industry track that is now switched by the DM&E(and now CP) I took a tour several years ago of their facility. They receive black oil sunflower seeds by truck and rail(covered hoppers). Most of the inbound covered hoppers were CP/SOO. They clean and bag the seeds in Huron. They then ship bulk seeds to a Minneapolis milling company via truck, but a lot of the bagged seeds are shipped to a large bird seed customer’s distribution center(Kaytee???) in 50’ box cars. The actual facility in Huron is in an old elevator bldg.
Jim Bernier
We have an online customer that receives covered hopper loads of sunflower seed, millet, and milo. The product is seperate and is unloaded and sent into storage bins, where it is unloaded and mixed together and bagged for shipping to stores.
Last I knew, Kaytee Products in Chilton, Wisconsin was using rail service. Kaytee is said to be the largerst producer of bird seed in the U.S. Chilton is located south of Green Bay on the ex-Wisconsin Central,exx-Milwaukee Road, now operated by CN.
John Timm
On the east side of Sidney, Nebr. is an unusual grain operation. It’s located along the south side of the Union Pacific Railroad mainline and near the intersection of U.S. Hwys 30 and 385.
During the grain harvest season I’ve seen many covered hoppers parked there. At the driveway entrance is a sign identifying the facility as one which cranks out birdseed. Wal-Mart usually has a half-dozen or more of its trailers parked there. I’m thinking that the whole works operates both as a grain elevator and a birdseed plant.
When I worked for the DM&E we shipped alot of covered hoppers full of sunflower seeds, millet, milo and sorghum out of South Dakota to destinations east. Some went to Kaytee in Wisconsin, but alot went to West Cressona PA. It was big business (but seasonal) for a then struggling regional and I’m sure they still move alot of it now. I always wondered why bird seed was so expensive, transportation costs must have been a big part of it.
The smaller the package, the higher the cost per unit (weight or volume). If you bought the birdseed in 25 pound bags, it would cost you much less than it does in the size(s) that are sold.
The packaging itself costs more for small containers than it does for large containers and there is more labor, whether manual or automated, involved in filling the smaller packages.