Rail Freight Information

BNSF Rail has many forms of freight available. They offer cars, called COTs which stands for Certificate of Transportation, in a weekly auction. They have these cars broken out into five options: 110 car shuttle trains and Domestic Efficiency trains on Monday, Southern region origination shippers on Tuesdays, Northern region origination shippers on Wednesdays and single car shippers on Thursdays. The advantage to this freight is that you are able to lock in your tariff rates, protecting you from increases. This same advantage can be a disadvantage if your rates decrease. You can view the offers and past results at the following site: http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/cots/cotsmenu.html. They also have contracted with many shippers with freight they call Guaranteed Freight, the BN will be changing their guarantee freight program and be offering year long COT packages with offerings beginning in the spring of 2006, with packages start date of October 2006. More details to follow on this when officially announced by the BNSF. Both of these have the option to trade in the secondary market through our firm. The current values of trade are posted on the Freight Update at this site, that is updated daily. The BNSF has useful data regarding weekly performance and car allocations at the following site: http://www.bnsf.com/business/agcom/ag_news/fleet/fleet.html. You can view market pricing news and all rate change news at the following link; http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/ag_news/pricing.html. If you wish to browse their Agricultural Home Page you may view it at: http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/ag_news/fleet/fleet.html.

Union Pacific also provides various types of freight. They hold an auction every Monday for freight they call Vouchers, which are broken out into 3 regions based on grain origination and shipment options for FH/LH of each month. This auction is live, beginning at 8:00 am and ending at 2:00 pm. You submit bids via your “MyUPRR” number and may revise your bids until the 2:00 pm deadline. Our firm can place bids for your company if you do not have Internet access. The advantage to Voucher freight is that it holds a higher priority to Guarantee pools and general distribution orders. The disadvantage of purchasing voucher freight would be that because they region specific it is a bit more difficult to trade out of the secondary market. You may view offers and results at the following site: http://www.uprr.com/customers/ag-prod/gcas/addl.shtml , log on using your user ID and click on Grain Allocation System-Voucher Auction. They also have contracted with shippers with freight they call Guaranteed Pools. Again all these freight options are available to purchase in the secondary market through our firm. The current value of trades are posted on the Freight Update at this site, that is updated daily. For other useful Union Pacific information you may contact their Agricultural Home page at: http://www.up.com/

Historical Data

You will find charts representing the high/low range of each rail lines guaranteed freight (non-auction) beginning for the year 2000. In 2000 there was a wide range between the highs and lows of each month due to the large number of cars allocated to each railroad’s guaranteed pool of freight. The following information is only a tool to possibly help determine the best time to buy each month based on past values traded and when. The values posted on these reports do not reflect current prices, for those please refer to the Freight Update report on this site.