Western Railroad Discussion > Interesting way for a Railroad to make the news

https://www.foxnews.com/us/minnesota-railroad-track-corn-viral-spill-freight-train-canadian-pacific-railway

According to the article
 
Assuming the corn was about 1.5 inches deep the entire way, the Star Tribune estimated the spill would amount to about 900 bushels. That's about $3,400 worth of corn at Tuesday's prices on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
 
And then this:
 
Capacity per rail car/train 4750 Cubic Foot Hopper Car 5750 Cubic Foot Hopper Car Total Weight (full): 268,000 lbs 286,000 lbs Soybean Capacity: 3,330 bushels (100 short tons) 3,666 bushels (110 tons) Depending on the size and capacity of the rail cars, a 110 car unit train can accommodate approximately 366,000 – 403,000 bushels of soybeans.
https://www.soytransportation.org/Stats/Railroad_Capacity.pdf
 
It would have been about one-fourth of a carload.
 
 
 

The bears will have a fine meal...

Posted from Android

If the bears and deer show up it will be a slaughterhouse.

let it rain, freeze, warm up and thaw out a couple times and the deer and bears will be feeilng REAL GOOD!!  PARTY TIME!!!

How many bears do they get in the suburbs of Minneapolis?
And being the suburbs I'll bet it gets cleaned up pretty quickly.

Shades of that BNSF dump some years ago when the tourists were lined up on the shoulder of the road in
their lawn chairs watching the bears feed. 

Out

ldstephey Wrote:

>  
> It would have been about one-fourth of a carload.
>  
Which pretty much means it emptied one bay of a 4-bay hopper.  Sort of what I would expect if one hopper was cracked open.

GTD

PHall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How many bears do they get in the suburbs of
> Minneapolis?
> And being the suburbs I'll bet it gets cleaned up
> pretty quickly.

There are bears in the suburbs of Tampa, Orlando, and West Palm Beach. Many more alligators, though.

Posted from Android

There are a lot more bears out there than people recognize. Not sure about the Twins specifically,  but suburban NJ, for example has lots. 

Dont underestimate how disruptive drunk deer and even rats can be. 

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The bears will have a fine meal...
>
> Posted from Android

Not many bears out and about this time of year in Minnesota. Now if late March or April it might be quite a feeding frenzy.

ldstephey Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> According to the article
>  
> Assuming the corn was about 1.5 inches deep the
> entire way, the Star Tribune estimated the spill
> would amount to about 900 bushels. That's about
> $3,400 worth of corn at Tuesday's prices on the
> Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
>  
> And then this:
>  
> Capacity per rail car/train 4750 Cubic Foot Hopper
> Car 5750 Cubic Foot Hopper Car Total Weight
> (full): 268,000 lbs 286,000 lbs Soybean Capacity:
> 3,330 bushels (100 short tons) 3,666 bushels (110
> tons) Depending on the size and capacity of the
> rail cars, a 110 car unit train can accommodate
> approximately 366,000 – 403,000 bushels of
> soybeans.
> https://www.soytransportation.org/Stats/Railroad_C
> apacity.pdf
>  
> It would have been about one-fourth of a carload.
>  

Wow, I didn't realize how valuable a hopper car load of corn is.  Based on these nuimbers, one load is worth $12580.00.  Gives an idea of how much a derailment that dumps the whole load costs.
I wonder how much it costs to ship that load from the midwest to somewhere like Longview, WA.

wingomann Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wonder how much it costs to ship that load from
> the midwest to somewhere like Longview, WA.

It depends, are you shipping just one car or a hundred cars? It does make a difference.