A refreshing and most enjoyable experience. And a question about Bungee Milling.

[Anonymous]

I have returned to the switchman's board at my home terminal to find some delightful news!!! The regular job that services Bunge Milling in Danville has been converted from Remote back to Convention due to the Remote engine taking off on its own. Bunge's local mananger quickly informed local management that he wanted no more remotes in his plant. Bunge is our biggest customer by far In Danville, as I believe it also the largest customer of NS in town as well. Thankfully common sense prevailed and it appears we will have engineers regular on this job[:D]. I was called to work this job Saturday night and it sure is nice to have a real, live person talking to you instead of some robotic voice nagging you about an illegal reverser change, etc. Plus the engineer can give me a few insights that I may have overlooked; nothing beats another pair of eyes on the job. For me becoming remote certified was nothing more than a neccesary evil and I really enjoy having an engineer on a yard job again. Now that it's getting cold (11 degrees tonight), I am able to hold 3rd shift. Unfortunately, my job will still be remote unless the system breaks down again, which wouldn't suprise me!
Speaking of Bungee Milling, we only serve one very small part of the mill in Danville. NS services about 90 percent of the facility. It is one neat place to check out. I believe CSX has a 20million/year contract with Bungee; I can't imagine how big the contract is between NS and Bungee. Bungee seems to process everything imaginable out of grain into animal feeds, one of the beer ingredients for Budweiser, prodcucts for human consumption, etc. Does anyone have any interesting facts on Bungee or the milling process???

[Anonymous]

Interesting to see a job go from Belt Pack to Conventional, that has yet to happen in my neck of the woods, as far as I know.

[MP173]

They are a customer of mine and I met with them last month in St. Louis. They have over 8000 railcars in their fleet (owned and leased).

Nate, how many cars do you pull in and out of there a day? They have a number of facilities in the US which grinds corn into (fill in the blank). Do you have any ADM plants you service? They have quite a few facilities in the Midwest, and they have over 12,000 of their own cars.

ed

[Anonymous]

Ed,

At the Bungee site we service we bring in about 15-25 empties and then pull out about the same # of loads about six days a week. The NS side handles many more cars than that.
We don't have any ADM facilities in the Danville area that I know of, but in Decatur that's another story!!!

[Anonymous]

Ah, just checked out the Bunge North America website and found an interesting fact....Bunge Milling operates plants in Danville, Illinois (the largest dry corn mill in the world); as well as several others.
That would probably explain why we have an average of 100 Bungee cars in our yard at any one time. I'm pretty sure from what I've been told is that NS handles the Corn side, which gives you an idea to the volume they handle. We handle the Bean side, which is much smaller.

[Anonymous]

"Does anyone have any interesting facts on Bungee or the milling process???'

this may be the old lauhoff grain facility. i believe the plant processes soybeans as well as running a dry corn mill.
the university of illinois ag site will have everything you will ever want to know about corn and its processing. univ iowa state will also give enormous coverage to the subject. all of the corn belt state universities will give good coverage to the subject ranging from introductory up to ..... how much do you want to know?

[ericsp]

http://www.bunge.com/
http://www.bungefoods.com/
http://www.bunge.com/about-bunge/timeline.html
http://www.bunge.com/products-services.html