Eastern Iowa Farmer Fall 2016

eastern iowa farmer photo / Lowell Carlson
Corn grown on eastern Iowa farms like the Larry Johnson farm east of Maquoketa moves quickly from field to
storage to market. The journey for export corn and soybeans can end thousands of miles away and across the Pacific.
Once the crop disappears into an area
terminal elevator’s gigantic storage
facilities, that’s it for most producers.
Besides, it may go into storage for
months before beginning the journey.
With plenty of 2015 crop still stored,
that is a real possibility.
Here in the upper Mississippi Valley
corridor, we have the distinct advantage
of water, highway and rail for crop
movement.
Barge transport is the lynch pin
for bulk grain shipments here in the
Mississippi River corridor, but the
diversion to other transport, and uses,
like ethanol, has changed that equation.
Barge transport, hands down, is the
cheapest per ton mile but is limited by
weather when locks shut down from
December into March. Trucks dominate
for local and regional hauls, of
course.
Class I railroads, like Warren Buffett’s
BNSF (Burlington Northern
Santa Fe), Union Pacific and Canadian
Pacific have invested heavily in
commodity transportation facilities and
focused on unit trains, a train made
entirely of specific cars, destined for
the same location.
That development has had a dramatic
and far-reaching impact. These new
trains bypassed small country elevators
that didn’t become high speed loadout
facilities. They cut shipping on
the Great Lakes and made the Pacific
Northwest ports like Vancouver,
Tacoma and others busy rail and ocean
shipping hubs.
Right now about 25 percent of all
grain bound for export markets moves
through terminals in the Pacific Northwest,
and nearly half of all wheat
exports move through Columbia River
and Puget Sound grain terminals.
Nearly all of the soybeans shipped out
of the Northwest head to China. Yellow
dent corn goes primarily to Korea,
Japan, Philippines and China. Middle
East markets are also served by Pacific
Northwest terminals.
Iowa State University ag economists
say, under most circumstances, the
most fuel-efficient route for shipping
grain from Iowa is through West Coast
ports, even though it has not been the
most efficient route. That is changing.
At places like Kalama, Washington,
corn, soybeans and wheat from Iowa
and the Midwest move in volumes that
stagger the imagination. The TEMCO
Kalama Terminal is one of a number of
facilities in the Northwest undergoing
upgrade.
A joint venture by Cargill and CHS,
a mega farmer-owned cooperative,
Kalama is state-of-the-art technology.
The rail yard is capable of accommodating
four shuttle trains, about 450
railcars. The grain terminal can unload
two shuttles simultaneously and move
and discharge 120,000 bushels per
hour into moored bulk carriers. Rail
receiving unloading rates are 115,000
bushels per hour, and it takes 8.5 hours
to unload a unit train.
Cargill pioneered the idea of grain
unit trains back in the mid-1960s with
the Illinois Central when an elevator
arranged for 115 jumbo cars to
haul 400,000 bushels of corn to New
Orleans, 1,300 miles away. The unit
train actually originated with the coal
industry. In some cases, unit train rates
were half the cost of single car rates.
With 94 storage silos and steel bins
the expanded export terminal expects
to move 250 million bushels a year.
During peak operations it moves up to
two million bushels every 24 hours.
All this with a staff of 50 people
working in the rail department, storage,
and loading. n
— lowell carlson, eastern iowa farmer
fall 2016 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 89