On a first-of-its-kind application of co-op equity, Aurora Cooperative and CHS, Inc. have teamed up to build a state-of-the-art high-speed shuttle loader that promises to benefit all parties involved.
Based on its long history of transactions with CHS, including selling grain and buying inputs, Aurora Cooperative had built up significant equity as part of the co-op structure.
Recognizing that the equity is in place to help develop new services for co-op members, Aurora Cooperative president George Hohwieler posed the idea of a new shuttle loader facility to Lynden Johnson, executive vice president of CHS Country Operations.
双方都同意这可能是一项资产。这两个合作社形成了一个独立的实体，East LLC，作为50/50合资企业。LLC将设施租赁给Aurora合作社，该合作社对管理和运营负有全部责任。
Adding volume for BNSF
From the outset, the intent was to build a simple, high-capacity facility designed to take grain in by truck and move it out by shuttle train safely, quickly and efficiently.
- 跨年代极光合作有17个谷仓outh-central Nebraska and one in Republic, KS. The five elevators that comprise Aurora’s Highway 8 corridor just north of the Kansas state line, and including Republic, KS, are all older, none with the capacity to load shuttle trains.
Aurora Co-op selected its Superior, NE, location for this facility. It has three other Nebraskan shuttle loader facilities in Sedan and Grand Island, both served by the Union Pacific, and one in Aurora, served by the BNSF.
“Our Superior facility is in a trade area where BNSF lacked volume. It made perfect sense for us to work very closely with BNSF to put the shuttle loader here,” explains Chad Carlson, vice president, grain, for Aurora Cooperative.
Aurora initially explored expanding its existing in-town location in Superior, but several factors, including a creek on the property and managing higher truck traffic, prompted them to stake out property on the eastern outskirts of town.
There, Superior East LLC, at Aurora and CHS’s direction, began construction of the $28 million facility in May 2013. Todd & Sargent served as the general contractor.
An ag bio multiplex
Features include a 120-car loop track, 1.25 million bushels of permanent storage in 12 bins, 3.3 million bushels of ground-pile storage, and a 10,000-ton liquid fertilizer tank to serve the cooperative’s agronomy division.
“We refer to our locations as ‘bio multiplexes,’” Carlson says. “We can serve our members’ needs for fertilizer and handling grain. With the loop track in place, it was an easy decision to have the liquid fertilizer available to receive shuttles of fertilizer.”
另一个简单的决定是在初始循环设计中添加1,000英尺的轨道，以处理120辆车的班车。卡尔森解释说：“航天飞机的起价为90至100辆，现在是110辆。
为未来建造
我在操作,新的设施s meeting the expectations. Trucks enter across a Rice Lake scale. The driver scans his card across the reader and selects the proper account for the load as a grain sample is pulled with a Gamet probe. The truck moves ahead to one of two 1,200-bushel receiving pits. After dumping, the truck moves ahead to an outbound scale, is weighed, then exits.
It’s a quick process. Connor Hiebner says that when everything was going full bore at harvest, trucks went from scale to scale in under four minutes.
Hiebner is the terminal manager for the facility. A recent graduate from University of Nebraska – Lincoln in mechanical systems management, he connected with Aurora Cooperative as an intern. When he started as a full-time employee in May 2014, he had the benefit of being on-site during the facility’s construction and start-up.
The two dump pits each have 20,000-bushel/hour reclaim conveyors that can feed into any of three legs: two 30,000-bushel/hour legs and a 20,000-bushel/hour leg that also removes grain from the 7,000-bushel/hour dryer.
As trucks are unloaded, a Mac Process dust collection system minimizes any dust escapes; the dust is consolidated and reintroduced.
入站谷物可以直接通往任何位置，包括该设施的室外存储。直到4月下旬，室外存储仍处于完整的最后阶段，从而从中央塔式倒空的头顶阻力中获得谷物。完全穿孔的塔也使空气通过堆进行通风。
收回的阻力是与水泥地板的冲洗，并从塔到谷物腿。可以使用这些顶部和地下拖动这些桩填充和清空。唯一需要的额外设备是将最后一块谷物推入地板拖动的车轮装载机。
Grain movement is monitored and controlled using Comco automation systems. From Hiebner’s office, and from several computer terminals around the property, grain flow and equipment status can be confirmed at a glance.
Hiebner说，最先进的技术使所有流程都更加平稳，安全地运行。
“For example, our legs have alignment warnings for the tail and the head. There are plug alarms, run/fail alarms, speed trip alarms to warn if the top or bottom drums are running at different speeds, and alarms if a belt is rubbing the side.
“这些系统提供的安全性很重要。像我们一样移动谷物，我们不希望事情出错，”希伯纳说。
Sensors on critical systems have the ability to initiate automatic sequenced shutdowns. “Generally, this starts with the pit gate closing to stop the flow of grain; then it goes through a clean-out process prior to shutdown,” Hiebner says. The system also performs this automated shutdown when commanded at closing time.
Train load-out
全部inbound grain at the Superior facility is destined for train load-out. There’s an option for truck load-out if serving local markets makes sense, but the focus is on getting shuttles in, loaded and out.
BNSF将110辆车的航天飞机及其通常的三个机车拉到了上循环中。BNSF机组人员离开，Aurora员工承担了火车的控制。
加载过程包括机车中的运算符和工作器的运算符。
As a railcar passes the card reader, it signals the elevator’s bulk weigher system as to the exact amount of weight that particular car requires. The bulk weigher weighs and releases the grain into the car, with the amount confirmed by the automated system for each car’s manifest.
两名戴着秋季约束装备的工人在铁路车上，一个开口舱口，另一个闭合舱门。
驻扎在装载机喷口操作员旁边的员工通过计算机屏幕监视加载进度。而且，在同一办公室中，两个采样器拉和标记谷物的样品，这些样本不断从溪流中绘制。一个采样器是Aurora的员工，他不断检查样品的成绩质量和状况。如果他们检测到任何谷物外级，他们就可以在旅途中进行混合调整。第二个采样器是独立谷物检查服务的代表，他们记录了每辆车的样本。
The shuttle loader facility is enclosed to protect workers from the elements and for more efficient dust management. Dust is recycled back into the grain being loaded to assure accurate weights.
当火车装载时，Aurora团队将其移交给BNSF船员，后者将其从酒店驱逐到目的地。
Carlson says the efficiencies brought forth by the circular track are tremendous. “The train stays intact,” he says. “There’s no decoupling and coupling cars, no shuttling cars, no building air.”
He says BNSF recognized the value this level of efficiency presented to them, and were a very willing participant in making it all come together. While Aurora Cooperative owns the loop track on their property, BNSF handled the improvements on their connecting track. And, the railroad worked with Aurora Cooperative for the extensive training and agreements needed for Aurora personnel to operate the train on its property.
“机组人员可以在这里发现火车，然后在10个小时内捡起它。它可以打入加利福尼亚市场，然后回来，尽可能快地进行这些转弯。”卡尔森说。“该设施使铁路更加高效。”
新市场，新选择
Carlson says having this large, new high-capacity facility greatly benefits the farmer/owners of the Aurora Cooperative. Obvious benefits include lower cost transportation costs to export market ports and large inland consumers such as Texas feedlots.
除此之外，这个新设施为合作社的其他谷物电梯提供了新的选择。
“Before, we were running a lot of volume through those older houses, and it was difficult. Now, here, we have huge capacity to move corn and soybeans, and we can stage various segregated and identity-preserved grains at our smaller assets, as needed,” Carlson explains. “This provides a redeployment of how we use our facilities.”
Carlson and Hiebner both say their farmer/owners are impressed with the speed, the technology and the simplicity of the new Superior location.
“It’s a state-of-the art facility that this part of southern Nebraska and northern Kansas has never seen,” Carlson says. “It’s built this way in part because our farmer/owners are working the exact same way. They are using the latest in technology, size and speed, and it’s important for us to be in step with that. We’re very optimistic about agriculture. The reality is we are feeding the world. To have the facilities, the people and means to move this food supply to the rest of the world is of upmost importance.”
