(rshsdepot) With port shut down, grain must be rerouted

["Paul Luchter" <luckyshow_@_mindspring.com>]

[This is an article about railroads, not about rail stations, I am not rail station-bashing. Truth to lies is not bashing, it is an
insult to intelligent discussion to use such simplistic labeling; and criticism of misused power is freedom and liberty defined. Now
read on.]

With port shut down, grain must be rerouted

Disruptions in shipping may ripple across U.S.

By Steve Karnowski
Associated Press
Sept. 3, 2005

Minneapolis--
Operators of the grain elevators that take in corn, soybeans and wheat from the Midwest and the railroads that move the grain are
waiting to see what effect Hurrican Katrina will have on them.

 More than half of U.S. grain exports go through New Orleans, and it remained unknown when the port and its shipping terminals might
reopen.

That means railroads and elevator officials don't know whether grain that would normally go down the Mississippi River by barge will
need to go elsewhere by rail or truck. Nor do they know how well the rail networks and other seaports would be able to handle the
added load.

"It's just too early to try to answer those," said Steve Forsberg, a spokesman for the Fort Worth-based BNSF Railway Co.

September and October are normally the region's  biggest export months for corn and soybeans, said Jerry Fruin, a professor at the
University of Minnesota's College of Agriculture and a barge shipping expert.

If the Mississippi River barge traffic cannot be restored within about two weeks, Fruin said, big adjustments will need to be made
for the new crop. Alternatives might include Pacific Northwest or East Coast ports, he said. And more grain may need to be stored
longer on farms and in elevators.

But Fruin acknowledged there's only so much additional rail capacity out there.

Mark Davis, a spokesman for the Omaha, Nebraska-based Union Pacific Railroad Company, said other ports will be able to handle some
of the exports that would pass through New Orleans. But it will tax the system if current forecasts of a bin-busting harvest come
true.

The Union pacific is North America's largest railroad, and davis said it has historicall shipped most  of its grain bound for export
through either Mexico or ports in the Pacific Northwest and Texas.

Likewise, John Huber, a spokesman for the Canadian Pacific railway Co., said only 10 percent of the Canadian Pacific's grain traffic
is normally bound for the Gulf of Mexico.

While there was significant damage to Jacksonville, Fla.-based CSX Corp's rail line between New Orleans and Pescagoula, Mississippi,
that will take some time to repair, its grain operations aren't likely to face major disruptions, spokesman Gary Sease said. Most of
CSX's grain business connects farms in the Midwest with feed producers in the Southeast.

The Elbow Lake CoopGrain Elevator in west-central Minnesota ships most of its corn and soybeans to the west Coast and most of its
wheat by rail to the East. But manager Allen Mashek is still concerned about the ripple effects of the closure of New Orleans and
resulting transportation costs and downward pressure on prices.

Rail cars are typically in short supply in the peak harvest months, and it's not unusual for elevators to pile up grain on the
ground until the railroads can haul it away. But Mashek said piling grain means handling it twice, and that means higher costs for
labor, fuel and equipmednt, as well as spoilage losses.

Add to that the higher fuel and fertilizer prices resulting from Katrina, then figure in the current low grain prices.

"At these prices on grain today, I don't know why anyone would want to venture out in the fields next spring," he said.



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