Grain contracts for next fall are already being accepted at the new multi-million dollar Consolidated Grain & Barge terminal now under construction at Dwight.

“We’re way ahead of our construction schedule, and we may start taking grain on Sept. 1,” company spokesman Jason Clapp noted. “Our only work stoppage was for the blizzard in early February.”

Consolidated Grain & Barge Inc., headquartered in Mandeville, La., is building the state-of-the-art facility on the company’s 154-acre site four miles east of Dwight on Illinois 17.

Employing much new technology and new building methods, the grain terminal will have shuttle loading capability on the Norfolk and Southern Railroad. The shuttle will be capable of continuously loading 110 railroad grain cars by way of the loop track at the facility.

The elevator will be able to store about 2.2 million bushels of grain, and is focusing on a probable hourly grain receiving capacity of 60,000 bushels. Each railroad car holds about 440,000 bushels of grain at capacity.

The company will bring in its own management system when the elevator is ready to begin operations. Two full-time and two part-time permanent operators will be locally hired, along with several other seasonal workers when the fall harvest commences.

Ninety percent of the grain from the Dwight facility will go to hog and poultry markets in the Southeastern part of the nation, Clapp noted during the quarterly breakfast of the Grundy County Soil and Water Conservation District in Morris.

As the United States uses more and more corn for the manufacture of ethanol, poultry and hog growers in the Southeast need a larger drawing area from which to buy corn for livestock feed.

“Whether local farmers will benefit from shipping their grain by rail rather than by river barge will be driven by the market,” he said. “The main reason we picked Dwight to construct our new terminal is because the farmers in this area raise a lot of corn.”

The CGB search team chose Dwight because of the availability of corn supplies, and the area’s capacity to move 110 railroad cars of grain, something a whole lot of other shippers can do, company spokesman Greg Beck said earlier.

A somewhat similar facility with loop track was constructed at the Grainco FS Elevator in Ransom about six years ago.

CGB has 64 other grain handling locations throughout the nation. The terminal will offer basic grain contracts to farmers when the facility opens. There also will be trained grain graders on site.

“We’ll take your grain in today, and cut you a check tomorrow,” Clapp said, noting CGB also will offer an Internet service to help customers keep track of their business dealings with the terminal.

CGB will also construct an office in Dwight this coming summer. The contact number at this time is (815) 584-1111.

Corn will not be the only commodity handled by the terminal — CGB will also take in soybeans for distribution to the best markets.

The number of freight trains in and out of the facility on a weekly basis will depend on activity in the grain market. Several trainloads of grain have already been sold for delivery when the terminal opens.

“If we had an unlimited supply of grain, we could load one freight train per day, and possibly two trains,” Clapp said.

He noted the grain markets in the southeast, where the majority of poultry and hogs are raised, are better than in the southwest, which is more cattle country.

CGB spokesman Scott Johnson noted CGB markets grain throughout the world. The corporation was founded in 1970 as a barge company, buying and selling river freight barges, then entered the grain business five years ago.

“Now, we’re the leading grain company in the Midwest,” he said. “We’re getting involved in rail service now. We’d always been a river barge freight company before.”

CGB’s export terminal is on the Mississippi River in Louisiana.

“It’s unreal how fast they can unload a grain barge,” Johnson said. “They empty a river barge in 45 minutes.

He quoted the company’s mission statement to “economically and profitably meet the needs of the customers and owners.”

Johnson and Clapp were introduced by SWCD Resource Conservationist Natalie Mahler. The next quarterly breakfast is scheduled for May 25.

“We might run out of money by mid-May, but if we do, we’ll still have the ag breakfast,” Mahler said in reference to Gov. Quinn’s deep cuts in the budget, which could adversely affect the Grundy County SWCD.