Western Railroad Discussion > Ritzville's Grain Terminal Is Expanding

Ritzville's Templin Terminal grain complex is expanding with the addition of a new storage building next to the tracks.

The 54,000-square-foot building has a footprint of 300-feet by 180-feet, and a hoop-style roof, which is similar to a covered wagon.

Crews have been working on the project for months, and just within the past 5 days the metal roof frame was installed.

According to documents at the Adams County Planning Department, the building will be fed by overhead conveyors from the main elevator. Grain will be off-loaded from the building via an underground conveyor, which will fill a hopper, which will in turn fill tractor trailers.

The building has a capacity of about 1.5 million bushels. (Each of the seven outdoor grain piles have about 2 million bushels.)

Once the roof covering is on, the building will be visible for miles, and will make for a great prop for photogtaphing trains. The drawing I've seen show the building with a white roof.

Three photos attached.

Photo 1: This is east end of the building, on the short side.

Photo 2: Workmen using cherry-picker lifts attach a strut from a just-installed roof frame to the section installed before it.

Photo 3: Looking east with the completed roof frame standing trackside, a westbound grain train barrels toward downtown Ritzville this afternoon.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/25 21:43 by walstib.

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I assume Templin Is a BNSF customer.

Yes. They have a loop track, and regularly send out loaded trains.

It is nice to see something positive for rail traffic in the region.  Thank you for posting this, and the great images of the site.

Would it be safe to assume that this facility handles, or will handle the grain that was once handled by the smaller elevators along the line to the west?  (Paha, Lind, Beatrice, Cunningham, Hatton)

The Templin Terminal is owned and operated by the Ritzville Warehouse Company.

Over the past few years they have acquired several outlying elevators, including Paha, Lind, the one by the Highway 26 rest stop at the 395, and others. Not sure about Beatrice. I think Ralston, which was once served by the Milwaukee, is a Ritzville Warehouse property now, too.

From what I understand, they are using the outlying facilities for storage before shuttling it elsewhere. Sometimes, elsewhere is Templin in Ritzville, sometimes it's not. 

They have definitely consolidated the market and control more facilities than they did when I moved here in 2017.

The new building at Templin, from what I understand, will only be used to stage grain going out by truck.
 

Interesting. Elevators got away from using long houses in favor of silos decades ago, but are going back to them now. The tarps they use on the outdoor piles are not fool proof, and I've seen plenty of times where rainwater has gotten into them and ruined the grain inside.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

funnelfan Wrote:
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> Interesting. Elevators got away from using long
> houses in favor of silos decades ago, but are
> going back to them now. The tarps they use on the
> outdoor piles are not fool proof, and I've seen
> plenty of times where rainwater has gotten into
> them and ruined the grain inside.
Always wondered about ran doing that along with rats but the latter problem was in elevators too. Those long buildings were quite frequent along the right of way like Lind WA. That one during there fair and rodeo was where indor dance was held.