07-12-2013, 10:23 AM
Actually, there's major unit train traffic of covered grain hoppers inbound for feed in the San Joaquin Valley, since there is a great deal of feed lot, dairy, and poultry business. As FCIN/Ed pointed out in Reinhard's thread, grain elevators and feed facilities look very similar, and of course, you can't easily tell if a covered hopper is loaded or empty. In some ways, the question is just the direction the grain is flowing -- at a town elevator, it comes from trucks to storage to train. At a feed facility, it goes from train to storage to truck. And fertilizer, it seems to me, is often in both places, since they may not raise grain, but do raise cotton, onions, or whatever.