Shipper: Railroad ag reports still needed

   While not many companies look at the agricultural data railroads file each month to the Surface Transportation Board, the data is still valuable, Cargill’s Brad Hildebrand wrote in a letter to the board.
   Hlidebrand, the company’s global rail and barge lead, wrote the letter to oppose Norfolk Southern’s request to do away with the requirement that it makes agricultural contracts public. The railroad has argued that it costs a substantial bit of money to publish these reports, which are then posted on the STB website, and that when posted, the reports are hardly ever accessed.
   Hildebrand wants all Class I carriers to continue to have to make these deals available, and he also wants carriers to be specific in their reports. According to Hildebrand, while railroads have been required by congress to publish origin and destination information from each contract, many of the railroads simply publish geographic ranges.
   “How does one gather any intelligent information from this type of reporting?” he asked.
   He noted that the lack of detail in the contract reports is turning people away, making them less likely to access the files because they aren’t as informative.
   “If one of the Class I’s gets out from having to file, I suspect you will see the rest of them follow suit,” he wrote. “This leaves the Ag industry left to wonder what types of deals the railroads have cut with industry players. I don’t think Congress would be glad to know that a provision that they put into law to incent competition among players will become a thing of the past if any of the Class I’s gets out of having to report.