Basics and Specifics of the Grain Train

[Junctionfan]

How are large unit grain trains made up; what goes into making a large unit grain train?

Who takes unit grain trains?

Which industries supplies there own cars for the grain train other then the railroads?

[ericsp]

Grain elevators for cattle, chicken, and turkey feed take unit grain trains. Large flour mills will probably take them also. Many of the hoppers are owned by third party leasing companies. I see large quantities of ADM and Cargill hoppers. The typical grain train I see has UP (and railroads that UP bought), grain company hoppers (many times more than one company on a train), and leased hoppers. BNSF trains seem to have all, or almost all, BNSF hoppers more often than UP with UP hoppers. I will occasionally see a hopper train made almost entire of Cargill hoppers.

I did see a UP grain train that consisted entirely of shiny, new CMO (UP) covered hoppers, and some locomotives.

[Junctionfan]

Does the large Cargil trains come from one elevator or a number of them?

[Anonymous]

Living in western Canada we have alot of large grain terminals. The ones out here usually get a full spot of anywhere from 60 to 100 cars. This is done by a unit train of empties. When they are all loaded a regular crew is called often time with a light engines and picks them up. Not the most popular job as it sometimes takes over 10 to 12 hours to build the train brake test and get over the road. More often than not a relief crew is called to complete the trip. Pretty well all the grain on the praires is exported so it run as a solid train of grain to either the west or east coast depending on the type of grain. Also if there is less than a 112 cars on a westward train you will likely fill out to that car count at some other terminal. A tonnage train of 112 cars is what 1locomotive and 2 robots can take to the west coast with out pushers. Not sure about running eastward.

Brent