I love railroads and the Midwest has a great percentage of active rail lines running through it, from major heavy rail traffic routes to the rural branchlines on light rails and well-worn ties. In Fairmont (Mn.) there is an old rail spur that still serves as a grain transload facility near downtown. Randy Kabe owns Southern Minnesota
Seed Cleaning Service and currently transfers corn and other grain from truck-to-railcar. The small operation is based at a vintage grain and coal elevator in Fairmont, Minnesota. Randy says his company currently receives anywhere from three to 10 empty covered hopper cars per month from the Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad’s (off the IC&E’s Jackson Subdivision that operates through Fairmont along with the Union Pacific’s Fairmont Subdivision which crosses the IC&E line in town). Randy says he uses a modified secondhand agricultural tractor to move the cars setout by IC&E crews on a long siding beside his elevator.
He explained his coupler-equipped tractor switcher is a real “homemade,” low-budget piece of equipment that he “dreamt up” to get the job done more safely than the dangerous logging chain method he tried at first.
He bought the used White Farm Boss 4-150 equipped with a Cat 3208 engine and first extended the axles so the huge tires would straddle the railroad track. He then found an old John Deere cultivator at auction and used only the steel beam and 3-point hitch for attaching the coupler, which he got from the railroad. The custom homemade couple setup is adjustable and slides back and forth making it easier to mate with the couplers of the covered hoppers. “Works like a charm,” he said.How many cars is the Farm Boss able to handle? Randy said, depending on the condition of the ground along each side of the light rail spur, the tractor can move six or seven empty hoppers at a time and can safely pull two fully loaded railcars, though he has moved more. The Farm Boss has even pulled railcars through foot-deep snow during the winter.
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