(The following story by Marvin Baker appeared August 24 in the Minot Daily News)
ROLLA, ND – Mike Guderjahn had a huge monkey wrench thrown into his harvest plans when Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway announced it was discontinuing rail service to this border community.
Guderjahn, the facility manager of the Rolla Cooperative Grain Co., said his staff has piled 235,000 bushels of feed barley and has trucked wheat to nearby facilities since BNSF told him July 27 that repairing an 18-mile stretch of track between Bisbee and Rolla would be too expensive.
“It’s put us in somewhat of a bind,” Guderjahn said. “But we are trucking grain to other locations.”
Some of those locations include the BTR Farmers Co-op elevator near Churchs Ferry and the Farmers Union Elevator Co. in Rugby, both BNSF mainline elevators. Grain has also been trucked to Bisbee and Devils Lake.
According to Guderjahn, it became apparent in March that the steel rail southeast of Rolla needed repair, but BNSF officials balked at an approximate $2 million repair bill.
“It should have been back in service by May,” Guderjahn said. “Then in July, they told us they weren’t keeping the line open.”
Guderjahn added that had BNSF told him this was going to happen before harvest began, he could have been better prepared for the bumper crop that North Dakota producers are now experiencing.
At capacity, the Rolla elevator holds 786,500 bushels of grain that includes larger amounts of wheat, barley, canola and flax. However, because Guderjahn’s staff has been able to load 52-car trains until this spring, he said they normally handled between 3 million and 4 million bushels a year for the patrons of Rolette and Towner counties. Typically, the elevator has loaded out more than 800 rail cars annually.
Guderjahn wasn’t totally surprised by the decision, although he admits BNSF should have been more timely in giving him notice.
He said in the past 25 years, BNSF has been getting rid of branch lines all over North Dakota and communities around Rolla have been hit, including Dunseith to the west and Rock Lake to the east. He speculated that it may have been a matter of time since the railroad favors its mainline tracks, which run east-west along U.S. Highway 2 and Interstate 94 in North Dakota.
Guderjahn said Thursday, however, he is confident the co-op will get through the 2007 harvest. He said the wheat harvest is three-fourths completed in the Rolla area and he hasn’t had to pile any wheat or turn other grain away, although the pile of barley remained grounded as of Thursday.
In addition, Guderjahn said the Northern Plains Railroad, a short-line service based in Fordville, has been negotiating with BNSF officials to resume service along that stretch of track between Rolla and Bisbee that includes the community of Perth.
Larry Jamieson, the vice president of operations at Northern Plains, said Thursday he was not at liberty to comment on the situation at this time.
Public Service Commissioner Tony Clark said he wasn’t aware of any progress between Northern Plains and BNSF, but added he encouraged Rolla residents to contact Northern Plains about the possibility of returning service on that track.
Clark said he contacted BNSF officials earlier this month after people in the Rolla area called the him with concerns about possible abandonment. He added North Dakota law specifies that a BNSF track must remain idle for two years before it can be abandoned.
“Burlington Northern Santa Fe confirmed there was significant water damage on that track,” Clark said.
Suann Lundsberg, a public affairs representative with BNSF, said the line that served Rolla is unsafe for train operations and the track from Bisbee to Rolla has been out of service since March.
“We have proactively worked with the Rolla elevator to find other transportation solutions,” Lundsberg said.