(The Associated Press circulated the following article on August 23.)
FARGO, N.D. — Railroads will face a challenge again this year in hauling North Dakota’s harvest to market, shippers predict.
Last year, grain dealers piled a record 18 million bushels of wheat, soybeans and other crops on the ground because the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Canadian Pacific railroads could not haul it away fast enough, Public Service Commissioner Tony Clark said.
“The stars are kind of lining up again for the same situation as last year,” said North Dakota Wheat Commission Administrator Neal Fisher. “That’s the kind of thing that will keep you up at night.”
The Grafton Farmers Cooperative elevator was filled with 600,000 bushels of wheat at this time last year, while its operators waited for three 27-car BNSF trains scheduled to load the previous week. Without space, elevator manager Todd Dravland had to pass on buying more than 200,000 bushels of wheat. Dravland estimated the lost business cost his elevator as much as $40,000 in revenue.
This year, the railroads had more time to prepare for North Dakota’s harvest rush with many parts of the state’s wheat crop maturing about three weeks late, Fisher said. BNSF trains are running about six days early in hauling away what’s left of the Maple River Grain Elevator’s 2003 crops, manager Sid Mauch said.
“So far, so good,” Mauch said. “I think they have a better handle on it now.”
Keith Brandt, manager of the Plains Grain and Agronomy elevator in Enderlin, believes bountiful crops in North Dakota and an expected bumper corn crop in other states could again stretch the railroads’ resources. “I think they’ll be in worse shape than a year ago, particularly the Canadian Pacific,” he said.
The nation’s farmers are expected to harvest a bumper corn crop this year, estimated at about 11 billion bushels. “Our demand for rail cars — that’s going to run smack dab into that corn crop,” Fisher said.
About 70 percent of all the crops shipped from North Dakota by train are loaded onto BNSF hopper cars, said Steve Strege, executive vice president of the North Dakota Grain Dealer’s Association. Timely service is just one of several contentious issues between the state and BNSF. The Public Service Commission is building a legal case against the railroad, in hopes of cutting shipping costs.
The Canadian Pacific, which operates about 11,000 miles of track in Canada and 3,300 track miles in the Upper Midwest, was better prepared to meet farmers’ immediate shipping needs last year, Clark said. Through most of harvest, elevator operators along the Canadian Pacific line reported getting their rail cars within about a week of their scheduled arrival.
The Canadian Pacific is upgrading is tracks, company spokeswoman Laura Baenen said. The railroad also plans to divide its trains into two separate operations this year. One will handle shipments to Duluth, Minn., Minneapolis and Chicago, while the other will travel to and from the Pacific Northwest, Baenen said. About 1,800 new hopper cars were added last fall, she said.
BNSF plans to have its rail cars at North Dakota elevators within 10 days of their order, company spokesman Gus Melonas said. It plans to take 11,000 rail cars out of the company’s guaranteed service programs and offering them to regular-rate shippers.
The reorganization plan worries Strege, who represents the state’s grain elevators. BNSF plans to cut rail cars from the programs that offer grain dealers the most reliable service, he said. The new service program will provide regular-rate shippers faster service than what they currently get through the more expensive guaranteed service programs, BNSF officials said.
BNSF said earlier that it plans to invest $250 million in new equipment, including 1,500 new large-capacity hopper cars to better handle the 2004 harvest. The railroad appointed Jonathan Long, a longtime BNSF employee, as an ombudsman to work with North Dakota grain dealers.