Peoria Station

PEORIA – Looks like it isn’t gonna get any better soon.

Local rail users are taking a hit in volume. Caterpillar’s global machine sales were down 27 percent in February. Also alarming is Aventine Renewable Energy president Ron Miller hinting possible bankruptcy for his company. At least Keystone Steel & Wire fared well in 2008, though they extended their November maintenance shutdown due to having few orders.

The news hasn’t been good for the past several months. Last November, MGP Ingredients of Illinois closed its Protein & Starch plant, which eliminated a significant rail move of wheat flour from Atchison, Kansas to Pekin. In January, layoffs reached the plants distillery and by mid-February, the company announced it was existing the fuel-grade ethanol business and “temporarily” close its local plant for 90 days. MGP Ingredients hopes to reopen the plant, but acknowledges that it may be put up for sale.

In addition, local scrap yards have seen a drastic drop in business. Allied Iron & Steel, Alter Metal Recycling and Behr Peoria all operate local scrap metal processing and recycling facilities.

Depressed rail traffic has affected Norfolk Southern, which eliminated its Saturday run to East Peoria, returning exclusively to the mostly nocturnal weeknight runs, and TP&W, whose “alternate-day” freight trains which run between East Peoria and a terminal just east of Remington, Indiana, are often pathetically short with fewer than 40 cars on many days. On the other hand, the Iowa Interstate Railroad’s traffic seems to be holding, though winter time shipments of gluten feed pellets to Peoria will soon end.

Not all is Bad

On a brighter note, Archer Daniels Midland, which operates a large distillery at Peoria and grain elevator and barge facilities at Creve Coeur and Peoria, reported $585 million in earnings in the last quarter of 2008. The company recently completed installation of emissions control facilities at Peoria.

Also, Midwest Generation LLC is constructing a “loop track” at its Powerton facility, which will enable more efficient unloading of coal trains. The new track is being built because existing rail facilities need to be removed for installation of new emissions control equipment.

Hopefully, if and when the economy enters a recovery phase, these major local rail users will quickly return to full production.

- David P. Jordan