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"Pure nonsense? Then I guess I would ask you to explain why all grain destined for Portland, Vancouver, and Kalama doesn't right now terminate its rail journey at Pasco and is transloaded to a barge. I would ask why grain is shipped by rail out of North Dakota to the St. Louis area through St. Paul, Minnesota, instead of being shipped only to St. Paul and then finishing its journey on a barge. And I would ask why grain from Central Nebraska for the New Orleans area is moved via an all-rail route when it could be simply moved to Omaha and put on a barge. As for more environmentally friendly? Probably true, but if you take a poll, I suggest not asking any salmon." #1 it might be of some help to realize that in the wheat trade grain is never just wheat. this especially true in the white wheat market and an iron rule when selling to asia from the pnw. i suggest that some of the questions and apparent inconsistencies which you folks are discussing about all rail and rail/barge from pasco and lewiston are would be less puzzling if you take into consideration that the quality specifications and order sizes of the wheat in question will not allow it to be "mixed" in the hold of a barge. grain destined for the asian market has been carefully chosen and segregated at the sourcing elevator and that segregation has an economic value to the customer which will be preserved even through the ocean portion of the shipment. in short, the rail wheat is most likely not a true "bulk" cargo. the portland export elevators are going to be the best place to break cargo. they will have the expertise to preserve the identity of the wheat. this is a value added component of price which the customer requires. #2 grain coming from the dakotas will have problems moving via the upper mississippi rv during winter. freeze up creates problems with reliability on middle and upper river. even in good weather frequent "locking" needs to be contended with above st.louis. also when grain does run to st.paul this may be a marketing effort at "positioning" for a move to the river or the lakes. these things are hard to anticipate or understand without inside information as to strategy. #3 omaha, ne is on the missouri rv. i don't think this waterway has ever been a major conduit for grain to the gulf. rail is always the way grain from the western wheat belt is quoted, and nebraska and kansas bushels seem to flow easiest to the texas gulf not the mississippi side of the gulf. the missouri rv is navigable, but is not a source for export grain. in fact i believe that less than ten million bushels moved this way as late as 1998. in another comment a gentleman asked about bnsf to tacoma. there is an elevator at tacoma run by cargill, but portland has a much more developed elevator infrastructure (7 facilities). i think tacoma has lost that battle. at new orleans and portland the elevator capacity is not built to store and hold vast quantities of grain as it is in toledo, duluth, kansas city, hutchinson. the point of these ocean ports is to draw grain on call from country line elevators and to preform the "fobbing" task of loading a vessel. these export elevators hold grain for a relatively short time working for a quick turn over. also russia will probably not be a major disruption to the pnw wheat economy. russia is a red wheat producer with black sea ports. australia and china will have more to do with pnw. lastly the usa will be a net exporter of grain as long as she produces more grain than the domestic market can absorb. foreign competition will reguire lower relative pricing of our exports, but only internal balance of supply with demand can shut exporting off. a lot of the comments i read here about the grain trade make perfect sense and would seem to a be a reasonable expectation of how the trade works, but they are not quite on the mark. grain is a very peculiar beast. it always surprises. there is always some quirk upsetting the logic of the problem.
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