TEGMA Schedules Meeting with UP

TEGMA is planning a Grain-Rail Task Force meeting on Wednesday, December 10, with the Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha to discuss current business and operational issues facing the grain-rail sector. The agenda for the initial meeting includes these items:

• Factors affecting Western Winter Wheat supply, demand and rail flows.
• Improvement in efficient of pre-advice to ensure more prompt dispatch of loaded and unloaded shuttles.
• Grain equipment issues, including condition, size, cleaning, availability, train length, and so forth.
  

“This is TEGMA’s first step forward under our new initiative to focus on addressing business and operational issues facing the grain-rail sector,” said TEGMA Chairman Mike Mandl. He continued, “We will be in touch with the primary representative of each of TEGMA’s members regarding their participation in the UP meeting – space at the session will be limited, but we would like to include as many of those who want to attend as possible.”

Mandl said, “We greatly appreciate the openness of Paul Hammes and his team at the Union Pacific to meet with us to discuss these issues. We hope this will be the beginning of many discussion sessions with our colleagues from the rail sector.” Preliminary plans call for a similar meeting with key officials from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway’s agricultural products group in February.