Georgia is Using Southern's Multiple-Car Grain Rates

Corn growers of the South Georgia area in the vicinity of Valdosta looked forward to this year's harvest with justified optimism.

This had been what farmers call a "good year" for corn -heavy spring showers followed by long spells of hot, dry weather.

Corn streams into two open hatches at the same time as one of Southern's 100-ton capacity aluminum covered hopper cars is loaded to the roof line at the Valdosta, Ga., grain elevators of the Cotton Producers Association.

On August 31, when harvesting combines were just beginning to rumble through the South Georgia cornfields, Southern Railway moved to make this an even better year for corn.

Our railway put into effect, with the approval of the Georgia Public Service Commission, new multiple car reduced rates on grain moving within the State of Georgia.

Eight days after the rates went into effect a five-car shipment totaling nearly a million pounds of shelled golden corn left Valdosta over Southern's lines for delivery to the poultry producing area 0'. North Georgia. It was the first to move under the new rates.

Within two weeks five other five-car shipments, all weighing over a million pounds, had followed suit.

The new Southern rates on intrastate grain movements in Georgia are within the pattern of the interstate rates Southern proposed last July for the movement of grain into and in the South.

To qualify for the rates, a shipment must meet certain minimum tonnage requirements and must be shipped on one bill of lading, to one consignee, at one destination. (As reported in recent issues of Ties, the Interstate Commerce Commission suspended the interstate rates. Hearings in the case are now scheduled to begin January 8, 1962. After they are concluded the I.C.C. will decide whether all shippers can have the cost savings now enjoyed within Georgia. )

Basically, these are "incentive" rates calculated to bring volume traffic to the Southern. Shippers get progressively lower rates on greater loads.

A string of 100-ton hoppers await loading at Valdosta. Southern's volume rates apply to shipments having a minimum weight of 450 tons moving in five-car units to one destination. Ten and 20 car rates are also offered.

For example, the present grain rate for a single car moving from Valdosta territory to the North Georgia area is $5.10 per ton, or 14~ per bushel.

Under the new intrastate rates, with a minimum of 450 tons per shipment ( in five of Southern's high capacity aluminum-steel hoppers) , shipping costs drop to $2.40 per ton, or 6.67 per bushel.

Greater savings are possible in 10-car shipments ( $2.30 per ton, 6.4 per bushel) and in 20-car shipments ($2.20 per ton, 6.1~ per bushel).

The first shipper to make use of the new rates last month was the Cotton Producers Association, an Atlanta-based firm which operates large grain elevators in Valdosta as its grain marketing division. The granary is the chief purchaser of corn and other grains from farmers within a 25 to 50 mile radius of the city.

The Association's reaction to Southern's move indicated that the lower rates would create many benefits beyond reduced transportation costs. As the manager at Valdosta put it:

A load of corn delivered at the granary by a grower cascades from the back of a farm truck into a receiving hopper. From here it wilt move into elevators for storage until it is loaded into freight cars.

We are enthused over these new rates as proposed and published by Southern Railway. They will enable us to open additional markets and will mean more to the producers in this area and to the consumers in the broiler producing area of North Georgia."

Because it can pour more than a hundred tons of grain into each of Southern's "jumbo" hoppers, compared to its former loading of 50 tons in standard hoppers and 55 to 60 tons in box cars, switching movements are greatly reduced and loading time has been cut to as little as a half-hour per car.

Faster loading means less storage time for the grain in the elevators. This in turn helps farmers who formerly had to wait long hours on peak days before they could unload their trucks and collect for their grain.

At the grain consuming destinations, the lower transportation costs can eventually be passed on to poultry producers so that in the end everyone concerned from grower to consumer shares in the benefits.

In arriving at the lower rates Southern also considered the operating economies made possible by handling volume shipments in single lots. Shipping a multiple-car load as a unit requires only one bill of lading and thus cuts down on paperwork. Switching time is saved at origin and destination, as well as at intermediate terminals, since the cars move coupled together. Hauling costs, too, are reduced.

Southern's introduction of these money-saving rates represents a major step by our railway to help itself in a hard competitive struggle with unregulated, subsidized and do it-yourself carriers.

'Grain is one of the food categories listed under the I.C.C.'s agricultural commodities exemption. Only when it moves by rail does it come under government regulation. Southern has considered all cost and service elements very carefully and has offered a rate that it believes will return to our rails much of the grain traffic formerly lost because unregulated carriers were underbidding us.

So far only corn, the earliest grain crop harvested in South Georgia, has moved under the new rates from the Valdosta area. However, the same rates apply to barley, buckwheat, oats, rye, sorghum grains, soybeans and wheat. these may move as "mixed lots," with a different grain in each car. Or, since the cars are compartmentalized, as many as four different types of grain may be loaded into each car.

In short, Southern is offering an attractive "package" service at very reasonable rates. Last month's million pound shipments provide the best kind of evidence that shippers like it -and will use it.