MOUNT VERNON — The Central Ohio Railroad line from Newark to Mount Vernon is just what the Central Ohio Farmers Co-op elevator needs. And for good reason.
The facility loads corn into the railroad hopper cars to ship out of Mount Vernon. Each railroad car holds 3,500 bushels of corn and weighs 302,000 pounds. If that amount of corn was shipped by truck, four tractor-trailer trucks would be required to haul the corn held by one rail car. The co-op is shipping corn almost every day, according to elevator manager Greg Burgess, who said the corn is sold to ConAgra Inc. and shipped directly to the new ethanol plant at Coshocton.
Burgess said shipping the corn has been nearly nonstop. He added that 15 cars went out on the railroad Tuesday; nine cars were brought in for loading.
Because the ethnol plant wants good corn, Burgess said, workers at the elevator take numerous samples while loading, and test the corn for moisture content.
He said bigger cars, which can hold 360,000 pounds, have been brought into Mount Vernon on the rail line, but the weight that can be shipped on the railroad is restricted to 302,000 pounds. Burgess said the big cars are used to ship the lighter material left over from processing the corn into ethanol.
