Rail Officials Say
Grain Can Be Handled

WASHINGTON —(AP)— Union Pacific Railroad officials assured farm interests last week that they can handle shipment of this fall's crops as long as farmers don't decide to sell the grain they already have in storage.

"If the price suddenly shot up in a couple of weeks, there's nothing the Union Pacific or any railroad or truck or barge firm could do to meet the sudden demand to move two crops at one time," said Mark Davis, a railroad spokesman, between meetings with farm groups.

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman shares the concern and has said that another rail gridlock could hurt U.S. farmers' sales abroad.

Union Pacific has 33,000 hopper cars in its fleet and is buying 270 new locomotives this year, Davis said.

Grain-producing areas are regularly plagued by shortages of rail cars during heavy harvests, but the problem was particularly acute last year when gridlock in the Union Pacific system rippled up the Plains. At one point, 100 million bushels of corn were stored on the ground at federally licensed elevators.