Export Wheat Terminal - Cultura Technologies

Export Wheat Terminal
GAVILON TAPS MONTANA’S RICHEST WHEAT-GROWING COUNTRY
Chester
MONTANA
Gavilon Grain, LLC
Omaha, NE • 402-889-4000
Founded: 2008
Storage capacity: 320 million
bushels at 145 locations
Number of employees: 2,000
Crops handled: Wheat, corn,
soybeans, specialty grains
Services: Grain origination, storage
and handling, transportation and
logistics, merchandising and distribution, risk management
Key personnel at Chester:
• Monte Fauque, location manager
• Roger Czech, superintendent
• Rachelle Fenger, office coordinator
Gavilon Grain, LLC’s newest rail-loading terminal near Chester, MT features 1 million bushels of
upright storage and 110-car shuttle train loading capability using oneWeigh technology. Photos by
Bruce Selyem.
Supplier List
Aeration fans..............AIRLANCO
Bin sweeps ..... Brock Grain Systems
Bucket elevators .......... Intersystems
Bulk weigh scale .......Meier Sales &
Engineering Inc./C&A Scales
Bulkweigher controls ......... Cultura
Technologies Inc.
Contractor... Vigen Construction Inc.
Control systems ......NCH Controls
Conveyors (belt)...............Hi Roller
Conveyors
Conveyors (drag) ........ Intersystems
Distributor..................Schlagel Inc.
Dust collection .. MAC Process Inc.
Electrical contractor.......... Advance
Electric
Elevator buckets ...... Maxi-Lift Inc.
Engineering ................... VAA LLC
Manlift .....Schumacher Elevator Co.
Millwright....Vigen Construction Inc.
Roof system ......Kooiker Roofing &
Insulation
Sampler....................... Intersystems
Tower support system ...........Vigen
Construction Inc.
Truck probe ................ Intersystems
Truck scales........... Fairbanks Scales
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Rooftop equipment includes the head section of two 38,000-bph Intersystems legs, a six-hole Schlagel programmable rotary distributor, and 38,000-bph Intersystems drag conveyors.
selected Vigen Construction Inc., East
Grand Forks, MN (218-773-1159).
Vigen has been a frequent partner of
Gavilon, and recently has built new
elevators in North Dakota, Oklahoma,
and Nebraska.
Other major partners on the project
are VAA, LLC, Plymouth, MN (888583-4381), structural engineering;
Advance Electric, Lewistown, MT
(406-538-6767), electrical design and
installation; RT Logging & Excavation,
Lewistown (406-538-7585), excava-
tion; and NCH Controls, Billings, MT
(406-534-1032), control systems.
Construction began in April 2011,
and the facility loaded its first train in
January 2012.
Concrete Structure
The main concrete structure consists
of six large tanks plus three interstices, one
of which houses the bulk weigh loadout
scale and protects it from the elements.
The big tanks stand 48 feet in diameter
and 120 feet tall holding 173,000 Monte Fauque, location manager
T
he fertile plains in the north
central part of Montana, just
east of the Rockies and south of
the Canadian border, is often called the
Hi-Line. It refers to the main line of the
Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF)
railroad, originally the Great Northern
Railway, the northernmost line of the
19th century transcontinental railroads.
The Hi-Line’s major purpose was to
carry wheat from Montana back east to
the big flour mills around Minneapolis,
MN or farther west for export from the
Pacific Northwest. That is still its major
purpose today and the main reason
Gavilon Grain, LLC chose to build a
brand new rail terminal elevator on a
loop track at Chester, MT (406-7595146).
“This area of the Hi-Line doesn’t
always get the most rainfall, so the yields
aren’t always the best,” says Location
Manager Monte Fauque, who came
to Gavilon a little over a year ago after
managing another elevator at Shelby,
MT. “But the quality of the wheat here
is very good, and we wanted this type
of grain for export at our joint venture
terminal in Kalama, WA.”
To tap that potential, Gavilon built a
new 1-million-bushel slipform concrete
elevator outside Chester, with capacity
for another 2.6 million bushels in an
outdoor pile, and a 8,190-foot loop
track siding off of the BNSF.
To build the new elevator, Gavilon
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A Fairbanks outbound truck scale is equipped with a oneWeigh outdoor ticket printer that keeps
the driver in the cab and the truck lines moving.
bushels each. They have flat concrete
floors, 16-inch Brock sweep augers,
and two 50-hp AIRLANCO centrifugal
fans per tank generating an estimated
1/5 cfm per bushel of aeration. The two
centermost tanks have sidedraw spouts.
Incoming trucks carry grain to a 120foot Fairbanks inbound scale and an
Intersystems truck probe for sampling.
Then, a oneWeigh scale automation system from Cultura Technologies directs
the trucker to one of two mechanical
receiving pits holding 400 and 850
bushels, respectively.
After depositing grain, trucks proceed to an outbound Fairbanks scale
and pick up their scale tickets from an
outdoor printer.
The pits feed a pair of 38,000-bph
Intersystems legs outfitted with two rows
of Maxi-Lift 20x8 Tiger-Tuff buckets
mounted on a 43.5-inch Conti-Tech belt.
Response No. 601
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The legs deposit grain into a sixhole Schlagel rotary double distributor,
which can send it out to the storage
tanks via 38,000-bph Intersystems drag
conveyors or direct to loadout.
The storage tanks empty onto a set
of 38,000-bph Hi Roller enclosed belt
conveyors in a below-ground tunnel.
These belts return grain to the legs.
Rail loading is accomplished with a
90,000-bph bulk weigh loadout scale
from C&A Scales, with a Cultura
Technologies oneWeigh control system.
Maier Sales & Engineering supplied all
other components of the loadout system
such as load cells and limit switches.
The system includes railcar tag reading
capability, which sends railcar capacity
information into the control system.
“With oneWeigh, operation is as
simple as pushing a start button on each
car,” Fauque comments. “We have loaded
110-car trains in less than six hours.”
Workers atop railcars are protected
by a trolley system from Fall Protection
Systems running the length of 14 cars.
Ed Zdrojewski, editor