DREI Team Manages a Bustling Harvest Season

Harvest season is well under way in the Midwest. And the team at the Decatur & Eastern Illinois Railroad (DREI) is hard at work moving corn and soybeans from grain elevators to their next destination.

Using mostly unit trains, the DREI moves these grains around the clock each day to meet customer needs. The busy harvest season is nothing out of the ordinary for the DREI. This team moved more than 500,000 tons of soybeans and corn last fall.

According to DREI General Manager Nick Guinn, the team manages the uptick in volume by communicating well with each other and customers.

“We’re here to be a resource for customers and to operate as efficiently as possible,” Guinn said. “The team here does a great job. They know the importance of customer service and are willing to help any way they can.”

A typical day at the DREI begins with trainmasters and Watco’s fleet management team working closely with Class I railroads to estimate the arrival of empty railcars at any of the short line’s four interchange points. Upon arrival, the railcars are moved by the DREI to customer sites. Railcars are loaded and then moved by the DREI back to an interchage. At every step of the way, DREI team members connect with customers to provide updates.

One of the team members in constant contact with customers is Senior Trainmaster Matt Nicol. He leads a group of conductors and engineers and ensures locomotives are ready to move when needed.

Like anything else, challenges arise. Take this scenario: Unit trains on the DREI must climb a 2% grade near Charleston, Illinois, more frequently during harvest time. Because of the grade’s steepness, extra planning by the team is required to ensure that five locomotives with enough horsepower are available to carry unit trains up the hill.

Nicol said, “Our guys are the real heroes here. They work all hours during harvest. It’s really remarkable what our boots on the ground do for us every day.”

So what’s the final destination for these crops? Many places.

Total Grain Marketing, a DREI customer, sends soybeans and corn to a port near the Gulf of Mexico to be shipped to Southeast Asia. Corn from another customer ultimately makes its way to an ethanol plant in New York. And that’s just couple of examples.

A drought made for less than ideal harvest conditions in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. As a result, more western states are seeking grain shipments from other states like Illinois.