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Grain industry rolling loads
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Thomas Eide
I was talking to two of my friends Jim Dick and Greg Smith who live in the St. Paul, MN area about a question I have on operations. I was chatting about the grain industry. My question is: Was grain sold as a rolling load? Lumber, coal and produce was sold while rolling in transit. Country elevators fill up and the grain needs to go somewhere! Any help is appreciated!
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Years ago this was discussed - probably still in the message archive. I'm not sure about rollers - unsold cargo - but there were single waybills in some cases that included a stopover at a large grain elevator for grading & sale. On 3/27/2022 1:43 PM, Thomas Eide wrote: I was talking to two of my friends Jim Dick and Greg Smith who live in the St. Paul, MN area about a question I have on operations. I was chatting about the grain industry. My question is: Was grain sold as a rolling load? Lumber, coal and produce was sold while rolling in transit. Country elevators fill up and the grain needs to go somewhere! Any help is appreciated! --
Tim O'Connor Sterling, Massachusetts |
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I was working a lot in Kansas and Kansas City in the 1970’s and saw a lot of outbound and inbound grain moves. As Tim indicated, loads of grain would be pulled but not waybilled until the state grain inspections were done. The moisture content dictated if the grain was good for either human or animal consumption. So you’d have a load pulled and sitting in a track designated for grain inspection. Initially grain inspections only happened on weekdays but in KC we were able to get the state to work weekends to reduce no bills. Some grain shippers used ‘shippers order notify’ or ‘deliver on order of shipper’ on grain going to small consignees. This notation meant the load shouldn’t be placed to the receiver until the commodity was paid for. The consignees would go to a local bank, make payment and get a paid invoice and present to the agent to have the load spotted. If the load was placed without the proper documentation the railroad could be responsible for the lading but I never saw this happen. On Sun, Mar 27, 2022 at 1:23 PM Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:
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Charlie Duckworth Omaha, Ne. |
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Clark Propst
Charlie,
I bill my empty grain boxes to elevators to be divvied out as the train crew desires. Before pickup I add a waybill with a destination. Should I be just adding a card that says "For inspection"? I have an employee magazine from the late 50s showing a string of loaded box cars waiting for inspection and the RR's complaining about the per diem it's costing to have the cars sit waiting inspection. Sure would be easier, quicker to just pull in a "for inspection" card than looking for one with a destination for each RR. Clark |
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Clark Yes, a move to an open track in town or just holding the cars for inspection would make sense. While my comments were specifically about Kansas City; smaller county elevators also had the moisture content inspected prior to selling the grain. During the initial discussion on ‘rolling loads’ lumber, produce and coal were mentioned. I’m familiar with the lumber and produce resells while enroute but I never saw this practice on the coal mines served by the Mopac or UP. Was this a practice on the eastern mines? Charlie Charlie, --
Charlie Duckworth Omaha, Ne. |
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Claus Schlund \(HGM\)
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Hi Charlie and List Members,
With respect to 'resells', charlie asked: "Was this a practice on the
eastern mines?"
Yes, on the east coast coal was re-sold while rolling in transit - this was
called 'reconsignment'
Claus Schlund
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Clark Propst
OK then Charlie, Beings I'm modeling a branch, the cars could be picked up, taken to the point of origin (yard) and set on the 'Grain inspection' track there?
If that works restaging cars between sessions just got even faster! ; )) Clark |
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George LaPray
A lot of grain was sold "in the car" but it was not at all like roller lumber, where circuitous routing was used to lengthen the time of the trip to permit extra time to market the load. In the case of grain there were two principal ways for the shipper to bill the grain "Waive Inspection Set Direct" or "Allow Inspection" . Allow Inspection cars were held in "grain yards" where the cars would be sampled and the grain sold on the trading floor of whatever Grain Exchange or Board of Trade governed. Once sold updated billing would be provided to the railroad. Minneapolis was the largest cash grain market in the world and most the railroads has these grain holding yards on the west side of town.including: Milwaukee Road -- Bass Lake Yard Great Northern - Cedar Lake Yard (gravity hump with track skates) Northern Pacific - Grove Yard Soo Line - Himboldt Yard (still in use for general traffic) |
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