This Nov., our freight rate with fuel surcharge for export wheat from Macon, MT to the PNW is $1.04 / bu in 110 car shuttle trains. 48 car units are $1.16, 24 to 47 car units are $1.25 and 1 to 23 cars are $1.26.

As you can see, the shuttle is 11 cents cheaper. Elevator is responsible for building & upkeep on their loop track, need to have employees trained to operate the train engines, need to have legs capable of loading the train in less than 14 hours, and as a practical matter, they need to have storage for about 700,000 bushels of grain that's ready to ship. The extra storage allows them considerable flexibility in protein blending and scheduling trains.

When this shuttle first started, the competitor figured they were taking the 11 cents savings, and keeping half for themselves and passing on the other half to the farmers. His raw bids were about a nickel less than the CoOp's. CoOp has a much more lenient discount scale for dockage because they clean everything and have a feed mill that they run the screenings through to make pellets. By the time you get done playing the discounts, the shuttle facility is always at least a dime higher for me. Then they allow me to pick and choose loads that I use to come up with a paper blend on protein, which can add another 50 cents to my price. Then, when all was said and done last year, they paid a dividend of 32 cents / bushel for everything I'd sold that year.

It all adds up!