Few of the grain export sites I discovered when I started railfanning in the early 1990s are the same today.   Two new facilities opened.   Several others, I believe, were closed.  Existing sites were expanded.  Names of owners changed; hence names of facilities changed.

Given the current  18 or so train loads per day streaming into those facilities in the PNW, I decided it was time to update my knowledge.  The trains come from several hundred bulk loading plants throughout the western and middle United States, according to the BNSF website.  Keep in mind that most grain trains are 110-115 cars.

I heard at one time that it takes three train loads to fill most grain ships Not sure if that’s accurate still.

As best I can determine, here is the current state of export grain loading companies in the PNW. The car totals are from the BNSF document downloadable from the BNSF web site. Other information was obtained from public web sites or from personal observations.

A number of these grain export locations are hard to see.  Kalama Export  has two large loop tracks and power is often totally hidden from view from public areas.  LDC in Seattle and Columbia Grain in Portland also are hard to see; operations are often hidden from public view by grain car storage.

Temco (Tacoma Export Marketing Co) operates elevator/loading facilities in Tacoma and Kalama, WA., and Portland, OR. The company is owned by CHS and Cargill.  Both Cargill and CHS are headquartered in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.  CHS is the former Cenex and Harvest States.  The Tacoma site is along Shuster Parkway.  Kalama is located at the south end of the Industrial Park and was formerly known as Harvest States.  Portland is the northern of two elevators along the Willamette next to the Moda Center (Memorial Coliseum-Rose Quarter). Portland is difficult to see operations unless on foot.

Temco Kalama has room for 112 cars. Temco Tacoma has room for 250 cars. Temco Portland holds 54 cars.

Temco Tacoma operates up to four switchers:  two SW1200s, a SW1500 and a GP10.  Temco Kalama has a former BNSF SW1200 and a blue SW1000. They have been using a red LTEX1546, SW1500, but it hasn't been seen in recent months.  I don’t know what Temco Portland currently uses.

Kalama Export is the northern elevator in Kalama.  It is owned by Gavilon, Omaha, which purchased Peavey and ConAgra interests.  Kalama Export recently reached agreements with Columbia Grain of Portland (See below.)

Kalama Export has room for 112 cars in the facility and room for another 200 or so cars on BNSF storage tracks in the Kalama Yard.

For years it used a blue SW1 #632.  Also seen at the site recently were yellow #3186, a chop-nose GP9 and a red & white former Tacoma Rail unit. 

Columbia Grain operates a loading facility at T5 in Portland. It is owned by Marenbui of Japan and recently reached certain agreements with ADM and Agrex to align with Kalama Export.  It can handle 130 cars.  Columbia has had a number of units over the years, including some furnished by Peninsula Terminal Railroad.  It presently uses a B23-7 formerly owned by Modoc Northern and an SW1500 #207.  It is being switched by Pioneer Rail.

United Grain operates in the Port of Vancouver, WA.  It is owned by Mitsui of Japan.  It can hold 115 cars.  It alternates between a former BNSF SW12000 and a GP38-2, both lessors. Multiple different switchers have been seen here over the years.

LDC Grain, owned by Louis Dreyfus Group, has elevators in Portland near the Rose Quarter & Broadway Bridge, and in Seattle.  Louis Dreyfus Group, one of the world’s largest privately owned companies, is headquartered in Belgium. Storage is not listed in the BNSF elevator list for Portland. The Portland facility is undergoing renovation and expansion and appears to be able to handle up to 50 cars.  The Seattle site has room for 160 cars.

The Seattle site was formerly operated by Cargill.  LDC took over in 2000.  Two GP9s switch this plant.

The following two export facilities are new to the PNW.

AGP Grain, based in Omaha, NE, operates an elevator in the Port of Aberdeen, WA.  AGP is descended from Land O’ Lakes, Farmland and Boone Valley Coop in Iowa.  It has room for 110 cars.

EGT, Inc. operates a new elevator in Longview.  It is a cooperative between Bunge, St. Louis, MO.,  and Itochu of Japan.  It has room for 440 cars.

I do not have knowledge of what AGP or EGT uses for unloading power.  My guess is, that with the large loop at EGT, road power pulls the trains through.  

On a wonderful sunny day, I was fortunate to catch the northbound CORP train out of Roseburg crossing a stream near Oakland. 

Changes

Two years ago in early November I started a blog journey that now must undergo some changes. (On another note, who knows how this election day may develop.  We may see changes in our country as well.)

During a trainwatching session in Vancouver, Wash. in 2010, a fellow railfan remarked that he missed the SD40-2s.  He was probably 20-30 years younger than me, so had been too young for the heyday of EMD products that once dominated America's rails.

I had recently neared the end of a year-long project of scanning most of my older film negatives and slides, some extending back into the 1960s and 1970s. Over that time span, I scanned more than 6,000 photos, nearly all of them centered around railroads.  Most were from the early 1990s when I got reacquainted with trains. It seemed like I should share my wealth with those younger railfans who had missed the heyday of SD40-2s and with the older people who could remember them.

Those were heady days.  Southern Pacific had recently been purchased by the Denver, Rio Grande & Western Railroad.  After years of languish due to the ill effects of a prohibited merger with the Santa Fe, traffic started increasing.  The new SP, as it was called, desparately needed power.  So lots of older SD45s, GP40s and the like from Chessie, B & O and other eastern railroads started showing up in the Pacific Northwest.  Even the UP and BN yards in the Portland-Vancouver area saw frequent foreign power with CP, Grand Trunk, Conrail, CSX and Norfolk Southern present.  The last of the U-boats were still around on the BN as well.

Two shots from the early 1990s that I previously posted on this blog are shown above.

Starting in 1992, I was fortunate to obtain a job with a trucking company located between the SP's Brooklyn Yard/engine facility and Tri-Met's main garage.  New, weirdly painted units (at least to a UP or BN oriented railfan) showed up daily.

I was able to travel quite a bit, being newly single.  So California, here I came.  Columbia Gorge, Willamette Pass, Boise for the Morrison-Knudsen shops, Tri-Cities for the BN, and Canada for the CP and CN were frequent destinations.  In 1994, I started taking trips east to visit relatives in Michigan.  Some of these were by train, some were by car.  But I was able to railfan Chicago before the mergers and heightened security of the post-merger and post-911 eras.

Power abounded in the 1990s.  Since the most common locomotive was the SD40-2 at 3,000 hp operating on DC current, even the shorter trains sported 4-5 locomotives.  BN especially, was not shy about using GP39-2s on regional runs like garbage trains.  It was not unusual to see 3, 4, 5, even 6 Geeps pulling a train.

So on Nov. 6, 2010, I started a Google Blogspot page, posting at least one picture every day.  Over these past two years, I probably published 750 different photos, many of unique locomotives.  They ranged from "dinkies" (small industrial locomotives) to 6,000 hp GEs and EMDs.  Locations ranged from Pennsylvania to Indiana, to Arkansas to Arizona to California and all other the Pacific Northwest.

Times certainly have changed the past two years.  I've plumbed the depths of my files; the remainder of the photos are duplicates or shots without much interest even to me. Other outlets, such as Facebook, are available for publishing photos.

Recently I've come across Tumblr.  In my test usages, I like it much better.  Photos are displayed sequentially.  No header is required for a post.  All the photos are on display at one time.  Updates are easier to prepare & post. It seems more oriented toward photography.

I'm also ready to move beyond historical postings.  For years, I didn't take many photographs.  I had worked in newspapers for nearly 20 years, which burned me out on photography.  Other activites, like getting remarried, moving into a new house, adding grandchildren to the family, etc. took up time I once spent with a camera.  Besides, with the mergers between 1996 to 2001, everything started looking the same.

Culling my photo files and posting everyday reawoke my urge to use the camera more often. 

So, starting soon, all my photos will appear here on a page I'll call "photoeye": http://www.pdxrailfan.tumblr.com/

I'll keep this blog active as a photo storage source and as a fallback in case tumblr doesn't pan out. Also two years ago I started a sister site called "Photo Memories" for non-railroad stuff.  Within a couple of weeks, both Blogspot sites will be merged into the new Tumblr site. The new site will see new postings only when something really unique or new or interesting gets photographed. It won't always be rail oriented, but it will be the best I can produce at the time. 

If you've checked these sites over the past two years, thanks for viewing.  Hopefully, you'll follow me to the new location.

Always another use

Many older rail cars have found another use such as this ex Rock Island Dining car that is a Stoby's Restaurant in Russelville, Ark. Photo taken in 2002.

A unique view of history

Two "modern" and unique locomotives now have Museum of Transportation at St. Louis to call home.  Above is the 1,000 hp Chicago Burlington & Quincy "Zephyr" with 1,000 hp made in 1939.  Below is the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific EMD 1955 Aerotrain with 1,2000 hp.  Both are a far cry from the 4,000 hp plus AC units so common today.  Photos taken 2002.

Cutting brush

From 1991, these photos show the Port of Tillamook Bay 4381, a SD9 which was later wrecked downhill from Cochran, pulling a brush cutter along the POTB tracks.

UP in Indiana

Ex-Conrail 5351, a GP38-2, and a Union Pacific SD40-2, 3184, prepared to depart with a local at the west end of Elkhart, Ind. yard on March 21, 2002. The ex-Conrail unit was lettered for PRR, a transitional mark before going into Norfolk Southern markings.