Feds, Rail Company Huddling
On Plan For Train Shortages

WASHINGTON —(AP)— Federal officials and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. are working to avoid repeats of last year’s harvest-time train shortages that left grain sitting on the ground for weeks on end.

"Nobody wants to have a snafu on the transportation system," said Michael Dunn, the Agriculture Department's assistant secretary for marketing and regulatory programs.

"Railroads don't enjoy being in the limelight. Certainly, grain handlers don't like not getting the service they need."

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, Surface Transportation Board Chairwoman Linda Morgan and top BNSF executives met Monday with lawmakers and representatives of farm groups and grain handlers in the Dakotas to discuss ways to prevent future shipping problems.

Sen. Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat who organized the meeting, said, "We cannot continue to manage from crisis to crisis."

The time is ripe for some changes in the rail system. Railroads are under political pressure to improve service. The Union Pacific went into gridlock last year, and the Surface Transportation Board is up for reauthorization in Congress. Shippers are demanding tougher regulation of railroads.

The board on Friday announced steps to improve communications between railroads and shippers and make it easier for shippers to complain about rates. The board said it could not "ignore the pleas" of shippers.

Last year's tie-up, which rippled through the BNSF system, was largely due to Union Pacific's merger with Southern Pacific, officials say. But USDA economists say shortages of trains and hopper cars have occurred routinely before amid bumper harvests and will happen again.

Rail transportation is more important than ever, they say, now that grain marketing is driven more by market signals than government programs.

USDA is working on a system to make better projections of where trains will be needed, according to a congressional aide familiar with it. The system would combine USDA's production projections with information provided by railroads, the aide said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

BNSF, meanwhile, has taken its own steps to address grain shippers' concerns. As a pilot project, the railroad is setting up a special office to manage grain shipments in the Dakotas and to deal with concerns of elevator operators.

"We recognize that there have been some issues in the past," said Jim Sabourin, a BNSF spokesman. "We hope that by establishing this desk we can work through those issues and help improve the communication between the BNSF and the shippers in that part of the country."

The railroad also is considering some rate incentives for small elevators that combine loads. And BNSF recently appointed North Dakota native Stevan Bobb, an agricultural economist, as its vice president for agricultural commodities.

The railroad's chairman, Robert Krebs, recently met with shippers in South Dakota and was expected to attend Monday's meeting as well.

BNSF recently floated several ideas to the Surface Transportation Board for improving service short of putting more regulation on the industry. They include requiring railroads to report on their responses to shippers' concerns and to give more advance notice of service changes.