Bulk Freight News & Industry Updates - Stay Ahead in Trucking

WALCOTT, Iowa -- Jim Tyler from Phoenix came back to Iowa for the Walcott Truckers Jamboree just to see his buddies. They're among the 250 entries from across the nation in the antique truck display at the two-day jamboree. "I used to haul cows out of Ames and was here on the very first day in 1967 when they opened this place," he remembered about the opening of the Iowa 80 Truckstop along Interstate 80. "They had a few fuel pumps and a little-bitty restaurant. It's a beautiful city now."

The Associated Press Related Top comments Hide / Show comments No comments have been posted to this article. Start the conversation > LONGVIEW, Wash. -- Hundreds of union workers managed to block a mile-long train from delivering grain to the new EGT terminal at the Port of Longview, Wash. The terminal wants to use non-union labor. The train was rerouted to Vancouver after the Thursday morning standoff. Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad spokesman Gus Melonas says the bloc

ADM-Benson Quinn, a division of Archer Daniels Midland Company, announced that it will construct a shuttle loader grain elevator near St. Cloud, MN in St. Joseph Township. The new facility will include grain drying capabilities and four bins with a total storage capacity of 3.2 million bushels. The elevator will originate corn and soybeans from regional farmers primarily for transportation by 110-car shuttle trains to the Pacific Northwest for export to Asian markets. "Crop production in cent

James Raymer found a place to park his truck, and he wasn't giving it up. The driver, who pulled into the MegaStop Holiday truck stop in Lakeville about 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, decided to wait until morning to deliver his load, rather than drop it off at 4 p.m. and risk being without a place to park overnight. "I was lucky to find this," Raymer said, resting in the cab of his truck. With nearly all highway rest areas closed during the state shutdown -- which continues, at least for now,

The episode will help tell the story of the intricate distribution system that moves grain from the American farmer's fields to the first processor. Urbandale, IA, July 14, 2011 --(PR.com)-- The Scoular Company, a North American agricultural trading company, announced today that it will be featured on an upcoming episode of American Farmer. The episode will help tell the story of the intricate distribution system that moves grain from the American farmer's fields to the first processor.

Archer Daniels Midland, the newest company to buy land at Enterprise South industrial park, is clearing its tract for a new facility, leaving just 65 acres available for sale at the 7,000-acre former TNT site. The foods processor broke ground on its 18-acre Chattanooga parcel over a week ago to build a warehouse and terminal. ADM will transfer foods sweeteners from rail cars to trucks and deliver the goods to its customers, said company spokesman Roman Blahoski. "It expands our warehousing

HAMILTON - An agricultural company says it will spend $5.5 million to expand its port terminal facility in Hamilton. Richardson International Ltd. says it wants to increase handling and shipping capacity to meet growing demand. Enhancements will include the addition of a third receiving pit and elevation leg with two new truck beam scales. Richardson says this will increase truck receiving and handling capacity by one-third to meet the demand for grain deliveries, while a second vessel-

The U.S. Agriculture Department has increased its forecast for Nebraska's 2011 winter wheat harvest to 61.6 million bushels, which is 4 percent less than last year's crop. The new figure is based on July 1 conditions and is 4 percent higher than the June 1 forecast. The average yield forecast is unchanged at 44 bushels per acre. That would be one bushel more than last year, and 3.4 bushels above the 10-year average. The USDA estimates that 1.4 million wheat acres will be harvested for g

Statisticians counting the cost of householders' daily bread purchases say that they are reviewing the staple's importance in the shopping "basket" which underpins the food segment of the consumer price index (CPI). They are also looking at whether economic recession and the recent fashion for baking shows on television has triggered a surge in home-made bread supplanting the factory-made product sold in supermarkets. "We're reviewing the food price index basket and the relative importance

SALEM, Ohio -- The wet weather hit farmers hard this spring and many assumed the toll would be taken on the wheat crop. So far, however, luck has held out and the harvest is not as bad as once predicted. Many are reporting lower yields as a whole, but some farmers expected to find large amounts of vomitoxin or even head scab in their wheat after it was harvested, and that hasn't been the case. Some damage Jenifer Weaver, Deerfield Farms grain department manager, said they have had som

George Wolff: Who cares about corn? I have never traded a commodity in my life. And I'm sure I'll never be one of those shrieking guys waving their hands wildly down in the commodities pit in Chicago. But I do think the latest news on corn is big news for investors. Let me explain. Lately corn prices (NYSE:CORN) have been diving. That's bad enough for farmers but the effects ripple out to the wider economy. Corn is America's biggest crop by far, valued at more than $66 billion last year.

HOLDEN, MO (KCTV) - Heiman True Value, which holds a feed mill, warehouse and grain elevator all caught fire about 2 a.m. near 2nd and Vine streets in Holden, Mo. Nearly 10 fire departments continue working to put out the fire as of 7 Tuesday morning. Several grain bins are totally destroyed along with the grain inside them. A least five other bins have been spared. The building and business has been in the Heiman family for 56 years and a family member says this isn't the first fire

LISLE, Ill. -- If you or someone you know is considering selling farmland, please read this carefully. Grain farmers looking for a way to unlock the equity built up in their farming operations need not sell out, borrow or rent their farms, nor do they have to lose possession of their farm to gain access to that equity. I want to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Todd Dyer, I am president of the Farmland Marketing Group. I grew up in Wisconsin, where my mother's side of the f

Gary Vann pines for the days when he could put the pedal to the metal in his 18-wheeler and hurtle down empty stretches of highway at 100 miles per hour. "You talk about fun, man," the 34-year-old Tennessean said. View Full Image Jeffrey Ball/The Wall Street Journal Doug Andersen shows the 'black box' that transmits his truck's location and speed to the dispatch center. .That was in the late 1990s, when Mr. Vann was a rookie truck driver and oil was cheap. Now, with diesel at close t

NEW YORK: Billionaire Warren Buffett may look at Archer Daniels Midland Co , the world's largest grain processor, as his Berkshire Hathaway Inc seeks more acquisitions. ADM, based in Decatur, Illinois, is the "kind of company we look at,'" Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Buffett said on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop" with Betty Liu today. General Dynamics Corp and Exelon Corp. are also the types of companies he finds attractive, Buffett said in an interview from Sun Valley, Idaho. Buffett says

ADM-Benson Quinn, a division of Archer Daniels Midland Company, announced that it will construct a shuttle loader grain elevator near St. Cloud, Minn., in St. Joseph Township. The new facility will include grain drying capabilities and four bins with a total storage capacity of 3.2 million bu. The elevator will originate corn and soybeans from regional farmers primarily for transportation by 110-car shuttle trains to the Pacific Northwest for export to Asian markets. "Crop production in cen

Many cattle feedlots across the Prairies have reduced the number of cattle on their yards now that the summer has arrived, and with fewer animals being fed, the price of feed wheat has declined. Gerald Snip, a grain trader with Marketplace Commodities at Lethbridge, Alta., said he wasn't surprised to see fewer animals at the feedlots, and ultimately, lower feed wheat prices. "Feedlots don't have the manpower to have people feeding the livestock and putting up silage, so demand is a bit lower,"

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Freight can be a good barometer of economic activity. Simply stated, the movement of goods indicates commerce. Here are some stats: U.S. rail volumes excluding grain and coal shipments rose 7.9 percent to 4.6 million carloads in the quarter ended March 31, according to data compiled by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) in Washington. It was the second-highest increase in a first quarter, after last year's 9.3 percent advance. On the trucking side, where a majority of America's fr

Schneider National, a large trucking company, said today it is on the hunt for 300 truck drivers in New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma to haul for its Dedicated and Bulk tanker divisions. The company said it is responding to a growth spurt in those sectors and needs to ramp up available drivers. Drivers will use either dry hopper tankers to deliver products into, or liquid tankers hauling condensate from, the oil extraction areas. All positions are full-time and average $40,000 to $60,000

Farmers in and around Chester on the Montana Hi-Line have had one option for the sale and transport of grain over the last 20 years, but that's all about to change. Despite tough economic times, two companies, Gavilon and EGT, will be building their own multi-million dollar grain elevator facilities. Presently, farmers have to truck their products to a small facility in Tiber, but Tiber just cant keep up, said Liberty County Commissioner Rlynn Rockman. "That results in a lot of time, en

The harvesters' work is nearing a close for the summer. And despite their hard work, this summer's harvest will go down as a slow one. Troy Presley, grain merchandiser for Pride Ag Resources, said this year's total crop yield was about 70 percent of the average. Gaylene Friesen, a grain buyer at Pride Ag, said in a recent report from Kansas Wheat that three million bushels had been taken in at Pride Ag's 14 locations in southwest Kansas. Despite the quantity, Presley said he was

Losing your business, your job, your livelihood...all to the river. Ag Reporter Sarah Gustin was there and shares the story of one producer's stuggle of ranching on the water. 20 years of farming and ranching along the Missouri, but this year there won't be a bale made or crop harvested on these acres (Neil Effertz / Rancher) "It's basically all our winter feed production. It's about 250 acres that is either underwater or inaccessible because it might be a little island of land that you

Mexico City US teamsters have long warned that inviting Mexican 18-wheel rigs onto American highways was like giving a free pass to violent drug traffickers to smuggle their goods across the border. Skip to next paragraph Related stories Mexico isn't in cahoots with Sinaloa drug cartel, says government Brazil's new plan to beat poverty Landmark US-Mexico trucking agreement resolves 15-year conflict Topics Crime •Drug Trafficking •Drug Crimes •Crime and Law •Trade Policy •Political

The surge in trucking employment didn't just resume in June; apparently it never stopped. While last month's job report from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that for-hire trucking companies had added only 100 jobs in May, the latest BLS report released Friday, July 8, revised those numbers to a 3,000-job increase in May and pegged the growth in June over May at 4,400. Since the end of December, payroll employment in trucking is up nearly 27,000, according to t

About 30 to 40 train cars are off the track near Grenfell, Sask., following a crash between a CP train and a semi-trailer truck that was also hauling grain, RCMP say. The crash happened early Thursday evening on a grid road about 1.5 kilometres west of the town. Police said the train struck the trailer of a grain truck. They also noted there were no injuries to either the train crew or truck driver. Police said no dangerous goods were on the train. Some of the cars were hauling grain

Soaring animal feed prices are putting pressure on producers of meat, dairy and eggs. The price of corn has risen 72 percent over the past year, according to the Western Milling Quality Feeds newsletter. Soybean meal, cotton seed and hay are all up substantially, too. Keith Stephens, owner of Amberhill Farm northeast of Oildale, has had to raise the price of the eggs he sells at a weekly farmer's market for the first time in a decade. "That's not even the beginning of it," he said. "It'

By CAROLINE HENSHAW LONDON--World food prices edged up in June to near their record highs as a sharp increase in sugar prices outweighed a slump in the grains complex, the United Nation's food body said Thursday. The Food and Agriculture Organization's food price index, which covers prices of a basket of commodities, rose 1% to 234 points last month, up 39% compared with the same time last year and just below the record 238 points hit in February. The main driver of the increase was a

PAXTON - Three local grain elevator companies are helping Paxton volunteer firefighters help them in case of an emergency. The three companies, The Anderson Company, Gavilon Grain and The Scoular Company, donated $16,850 to the Paxton Volunteer Fire Department on Wednesday. According to Dive Captain Mike Kramer, all of the money will be used to purchase rope rescue and confined space rescue equipment, which includes new ropes and harnesses that can be used to extract an injured person in a dif

Greg Heckman had it made. He had spent 24 years with ConAgra Foods and was in line to one day become the company's CEO. But Heckman didn't get himself in that enviable position by playing it safe, and he wasn't going to start now. Heckman had been named president of ConAgra Trade Group in 1998, and eight years later, he determined that the ownership structure of his business was limiting growth opportunities. So he began to pursue a management buyout and lined up investors who would join him.

The U.S. wheat industry is bracing for a tight supply of premium pasta wheat this year after the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected durum acres this week to be the lowest in 50 years as heavy rains and flooding prevented planting. According to the Vancouver Sun, some industry specialists expect the number to get even smaller as the USDA surveyed farmers in early June when they expected to plant more wheat. "There's no doubt -whatever the final number comes out to on acreage -that

WINNIPEG - Privately held Richardson International Ltd. said Tuesday it will invest $25 million to enhance its Richardson Pioneer network of grain handling and crop input facilities across Western Canada. The investment includes building nine new fertilizer projects across Western Canada and adding increased grain storage in Weyburn, Sask. All of the new facilities and enhancements are expected to be completed by December. "This is the latest in a series of significant investments we ha

* Cargill, Dreyfus to keep a presence in PNW export mkt * Pacific Northwest biggest U.S. wheat export gateway (Adds details) CHICAGO, July 5 (Reuters) - Global commodities traders Cargill Inc [CARG.UL] and Louis Dreyfus said on Tuesday they will end a 10-year joint venture that operated grain export facilities in the U.S. Pacific Northwest within the next year. Cargill and Dreyfus formed CLD Pacific Grain, LLC in 2001 to handle U.S. grain exports, primarily wheat to Asia. Both compan

Cargill has announced plans to construct a new grain terminal in McLennan, Alberta, Canada, which is set to open in the fall of 2012. The terminal will be built on the same site as Cargill's new crop inputs distribution centre, which opened in May 2011. Cargill plans to construct a new 28,000 metric tonne grain terminal McLennan, Alberta,Canada. (Picture: Cargill, Inc.) Winnipeg (MB), Canada – Cargill's new 28,000 tonne facility will double Cargill's grain-handling capacity in the are

The lure of the open road and the romanticized idea of the solitary driver hauling freight across lonely highways always held career appeal to a segment of the American population. Not so much anymore. Thanks to the tanked economy and then its sluggish improvement, new federal regulations -- and the reality that driving an 18-wheeler thousands of miles can be a grueling lifestyle -- the nostalgic myths have been scrapped, and logistics companies locally and nationwide find themselves scr

Columbia Grain is expanding capacity at its grain elevators. In Carter, construction will begin soon on three new shipping bins with a combined capacity of almost 400,000 bushels. The addition will expand capacity at the elevator, which is a shuttle-loading facility, by more than 50 percent. "This will allow the facility to better service deliveries from area growers, as well as facilitate the loading of shuttle grains bound for the Columbia Grain vessel loading facility in the Pacific Nor

Thu Jun 30, 2011 6:26pm EDT * Corn stocks 11 pct bigger than analysts expected * Corn sowing 2 pct above, leads to "historic" price dive * "American producers stepped up"-Vilsack * USDA to revisit plantings for four northern states (Reledes. Adds skeptics point of view.) By Charles Abbott and Christine Stebbins WASHINGTON/CHICAGO, June 30 (Reuters) - U.S. corn stockpiles are far larger than thought and a bumper harvest is on the way, the government said, in reports on Thursday that a

By Reed Black, Land Line Now staff reporter According to the American Trucking Associations, the total tonnage of freight hauled by truck fell by more than 2 percent from April to May. Those figures are collected from ATA's member reports. And when viewed from a year-to-year standpoint, while May tonnage this year was up nearly 3 percent from last May it was still the smallest gain in nearly a year-and-a-half. So is the trucking economy slowing down? Not really, according to analyst

Cotton farmers in Texas, the biggest U.S. growers, may abandon a record number of acres after the worst drought in at least a century damaged plants and boosted costs for textile makers including Gap Inc. "This year will probably rank among the top abandonments," said John Robinson, a professor and extension economist at Texas A&M University in College Station. "The situation looks very grave." About 55 percent of the Texas cotton fields were in poor or very poor condition on June 26, ma

Russian farmers may harvest as much as 56 million metric tons of wheat this year, the country's Grain Union President Arkady Zlochevsky said, a third more than in 2010. The new grains harvest may reach as much as 90 million tons if favorable weather continues into July, he told journalists today in Moscow. The harvest was 60.9 million tons last year after drought damaged crops, according to the Federal State Statistics Service. The harvest will include between 52 million and 56 million tons

When the USDA offers its monthly and quarterly grains stocks reports, some important numbers are missing - distillers' grains. Distillers' grains - the coproducts of ethanol and beverage production - are challenging soybean meal to become the second-most consumed feedstuff in the United States. Only corn grain is consumed more. Sometimes called "distillers' spent grains," the distillers' grains category includes distillers' wet grains (DWG), distillers' dried grains (DDG) distillers' wet g

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--General Mills (NYSE: GIS) today reported results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year ended May 29, 2011. "We expect fiscal 2012 to be another year of good sales and earnings growth for General Mills" .Fiscal 2011 Results Summary •Net sales grew 2 percent to $14.9 billion. •Segment operating profit rose 4 percent to exceed $2.9 billion. •Diluted earnings per share (EPS) increased 20 percent to $2.70. •Excluding certain items affecting comparabi

NEW YORK, NY, Jun 29, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Trucking stocks are on the downswing this week after the American Trucking Association (ATA) reported disappointing data. ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello claims that tuck tonnage has hit a "slow patch," renewing anxiety over the trucking sector's recovery. The Bedford Report examines the outlook for companies in the trucking industry and provides equity research on YRC Worldwide, Inc. /quotes/zigman/122992/quotes/nls/yrcw YRCW +16.67% and Co

(VOV) - The Bunge Vietnam Co, Ltd, a branch of the US' Bunge Corporation officially inaugurated its soybean processing plant in Phu My 1 Industrial Park in the southern province of Ba Ria - Vung Tau on June 27. The factory, the largest of its kind in Vietnam, has a total investment of US$100 million with the largest capacity of 1 million tonnes of soybeans per year. Each year, the factory will process around 200,000 tonnes of soybean for local market and as well as to export to foreign market

Pratt, Kan. -- The 2011 wheat harvest had better results than anyone expected especially in the quality of wheat. Many yield results were also higher than expected following a very dry spring that saw only two inches of precipitation in the first four months of the year. "Everybody was pleasantly surprised. That pretty much sums it up," said Pratt County Extension Agent Mark Ploger. "Everybody expected the worst because it was so dry all spring." The wheat quality was well above average

Cargill's Canadian arm plans to build a new grain terminal in northwestern Alberta's Peace region to go with a new ag input centre it operates on the same site. Winnipeg-based Cargill said it plans to build a 28,000-tonne capacity facility at McLennan, about 75 km southeast of Peace River, to open in the fall of 2012. The terminal is to be built along Canadian National Railway (CN) track on the same site as Cargill's McLennan crop inputs distribution centre, which opened last month. The facil