Grain Elevator Expansion (Expansions?) on the TP&W

Last year, Chenoa, Illinois-based Prairie Central Cooperative began construction on a new elevator and rail loop.

The new facility (see above), being built between Meadows and Chenoa, will be capable of loading 100-car (or more) grain trains when it is completed later in 2018. Grain processors abound in Central Illinois, but the region produces far more than is needed locally, so a large volume is exported to other regions, and other nations.

Presently, Prairie Central Coop's three TP&W-served elevators at Meadows, Weston and Fairbury individually ship corn to Peoria (ADM) and soybeans to Gilman (Incobrasa) but co-load a unit train for the southeast, usually routed to CSX at Lafayette, Indiana. The new elevator load unit trains for southeast markets. 

Another elevator expansion appears to be in the works. Grainland Coop's Cruger facility is reportedly planning to extend its track east toward Eureka so it can built unit trains of at least 100 cars.

Thrice since late-summer 2017, Grainland Coop's Cruger elevator and Prairie Central Coop's Weston elevator have co-loaded an 85-car unit train sent (via East Peoria) to a Norfolk Southern-served processor in the southeast. Cruger loads 50 cars of corn while Weston loads 35. I caught the first of these on the weekend of August 27-28, 2017. The other two have been loaded and delivered to NS in the last few weeks (most recently this weekend), though I've missed both due to work obligations.

Yesterday, I shot these views which appear to show preliminary grading east of Grainland Coop's Cruger elevator. The first three look eastward, the last, westward.

- David P. Jordan