Wheat Transportation
Much has changed since our ancestor’s loaded wagons full of 100-pound wheat sacks in the fields and headed to the local grain warehouse. Our wagons are now trucks and our warehouses are now large, multimillion-dollar, temperature and pest controlled facilities. Computers run almost everything and, in Washington, we use three main transportation modes: trucks, trains, and barges.
Trucks
Trucks made their way onto farms at the turn of the century. Ford, Deere & Co., Allis-Chalmers, and others debuted the first renditions of a “motor truck” and many of them served the dual purpose of hauling loads and pulling plows. In the early days, they had 20 horsepower engines and could only haul a few sacks of grain. Today, a common semi-truck has 600 horsepower engines under the hood, and the grain hopper can hold approximately 1,000 bushels of wheat – or 60,000 pounds of wheat in a single load.
In Washington, the semis and wheat trucks you see on the roads are usually the first transportation mode farmers use to get their product to the market. They are used during harvest to haul wheat from the fields to the local elevator or grain storage facility. These facilities are owned primarily by grain cooperatives. For example, farmers in Lincoln County use their trucks to haul grain to their closest elevators in Almira, Wilbur, Creston, Davenport, Harrington, Reardan and other locations. These are considered short hauls. Once at the local elevator, the cooperative then uses either more trucks, trains, or barges to get the grain to the next step in the marketing chain.
Trains
Before railroads, people primarily ate food that was available in their immediate communities. The region’s first main rail line, the Northern Pacific Railway, reached the Puget Sound from Minneapolis in 1883. The Great Northern Railway was completed ten years later in 1893 operating over much of the same territory as the NPR. Railroads made it possible for farmers to sell their goods on the other side of the country. Today, those same basic rails make transporting wheat more efficient, environmentally friendly, and safe than trucks on the highways.
On a rail system, the local elevators load the grain onto multiple hopper cars and these “scoot” trains haul to larger facilities that can separate different grain types and quality levels. Washington State owns several short line railways which the grain cooperatives use to move wheat to central locations where it joins the main track. At these locations, larger facilities load the grain into 110-car unit trains. In Washington, we have five 110-car shuttle train car facilities. The Union Pacific Railroad, BNSF Railway Company, and Washington short-line railroads operate the cars and carry the grain to market. About 40% of the wheat grown in Washington arrives at domestic mills or deep-sea export facilities by train.
Barges
“For centuries, the Columbia River has been at the center of trade and transportation in the Pacific Northwest. Before the nineteenth century, trade focused on fishing and hunting, and travel was constrained by the river's fast waters and falls. Following the arrival of European Americans during the nineteenth century, trade began to shift toward agriculture and mining, and efforts were made to improve transportation on and alongside the Columbia. Between the 1930s and 1970s, a convergence of interests in navigation, irrigation, and power led to the construction of a series of dams and locks that transformed the Columbia and its largest tributary, the Snake River, into a major waterway. Port districts and other government and private entities developed an infrastructure and transportation system that now supports the movement of some 50 million tons of cargo by barge between Lewiston, Idaho, and the Pacific Ocean.” (Historylink, 2010)
Today, grain facilities along the Columbia and Snake rivers load 60% of Washington’s wheat crop onto large 4-barge tows and move it to the ports along the coast. Similar to trains, trucks or short line rail cars deliver the grain to larger facilities along the river. At these facilities, the grain is loaded onto barges that are pushed by a towboat down the river. The river system is roughly 360 miles from Portland/Vancouver to Lewiston, Idaho. A 4-barge tow keeps more than 530 cargo semi-trucks off the highways. Barging is the safest method of moving cargo, with a lower number of injuries, fatalities, and spill rates than both rail and trucks. It is also the most fuel-efficient and has the lowest emissions.
SOURCES:
https://kswheat.com/news/what-does-a-bushel-of-wheat-mean-to-me
https://www.farmcollector.com/tractors/early-motor-truck-history/
https://www.trainmuseum.org/index.php/the-railroad-built-the-pacific-northwest
https://wagrains.org/transportation/
https://www.american-rails.com/wa.html#History
https://www.historylink.org/File/9659