Re: More Eastern Washington Wheat News.
Author: Dave Smith
Date: 12-20-2007 - 18:52
Are you suggesting that grain from the Genesee elevators can now be better moved by rail with the inclusion of Fallon? They'd still have to truck grain from one facility to the other. Speaking of which it is still closer for trucks to drive from Genesee to Lewiston/Clarkston than it is to drive from Genesee to north of Pullman. Plus the rail move from, say, LC to Portland is less mileage for BNSF than it is for the rail move from Fallon to Portland via Marshall, and I believe the shortline miles that BNSF has to rate share with are less on the river route than the P & L route.
Why would BNSF want to possibly shift carload grain traffic from the Lewiston-Portland route to a Fallon-Portland routing? Or am I missing something here?
BTW - Genesee Union Warehouse facilities in Genesee and Pullman do a lot of business loading export containers, which are then trucked down to Lewiston for movement by barge to Portland. I have often wondered why BNSF won't embrace single stack containers from various inland PNW elevators and move them to the Puget Sound ports via Stampede Pass. Many of the elevators which still have rail sidings can load onto flatcars via boxcar docks - you could put two 20' containers at opposite ends of a 60' flatcar, let the elevator folk load their product into the containers sitting on the flatcars, then haul them via mixed freight consists over Stampede to port.