Build pipeline!

Steve Raabe reports that the nation's rail lines are clogged. Wheat elevators are full, and the wheat is just being stacked in piles next to rail lines. That will surely help the gluten free movement! Shipments of coal are being hardest hit,

but other commodities such as oil, grain and manufactured goods also are experiencing shipping delays.

Part of the shortage stems from a surge in domestic crude oil production, some of which is transported in rail tank cars.

Analysts say other factors include an improving economy that is pushing demand for rail transportation, and the severe winter of 2013-14 that hampered rail operations.

The Surface Transportation Board said it is particularly concerned about grain transport, with a backlog of shipments from last year's crops and large amounts of new grain coming in from above-average harvests this year in many parts of the country.

Here in Colorado this summer's harvest is estimated at 86.4 million bushels, nearly double last year's 44.3 million bushels, rail capacity could become an issue.

Eighty percent of Colorado's wheat crop is shipped out of state by rail, mostly for export to Asia and the Mideast.

Booming production of crude oil also is stressing the nation's rail system. Colorado output has more than doubled since 2008, to 177,000 barrels a day in 2013.

Read more here.