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Adequate capacity during demand surges is key to export efficiencies

The delays have stretched dangerously close to grain harvesting season, when barges need to carry wheat, soybeans and corn from throughout the Midwest down to the Gulf Coast for export.

The company posted a 12 percent drop in fiscal fourth- quarter profit as its trading and processing business continued to feel the effects of drought in the U.S. and a shortage of railcars.

Since farmers’ profits are dropping this year alongside crop prices, bridge-infrastructure needs have come into sharper focus.

There’s little room to make up for any new weather disruptions, with U.S. economic growth keeping tracks packed with consumer goods, building materials, oil, and grain.

U.S. buyers are sourcing grain from other suppliers as Canadian companies are not confident they will get enough rail cars to deliver on southern rail corridors.

BNSF, which has come under scrutiny this year from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board over late grain deliveries, has told some oil shippers its network can’t accommodate more tank cars.

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple opened a federal hearing in Fargo about rail service delays in the upper Plains by reading a letter from a grain elevator that said Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. was 525 cars behind in its service.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp says farmers have been “tremendously patient” about rail delays, “but that patience is wearing thin.”

Minnesota officials and propane suppliers say they’re better prepared to avoid repeating the shortages that hit much of the Midwest last winter.