Grain Journal - July/August 2008 - (Page 54) Growth of a Terminal EXPANSION HAS BEEN NONSTOP SINCE ILLINOIS FACILITY OPENED IN 2004 Toluca ILLINOIS Ruff Bros. Grain Co. Minonk, IL • 309-432-2333 Founded: 1991 Storage capacity: 16 million bushels at five locations Annual volume: 37.5 million bushels Annual sales: $153 million Number of employees: 27 Crops handled: Corn, soybeans Services: Grain handling and merchandising, trucking Key personnel: • Jesse Ruff, president • Brian Richard, terminal manager • Cindy Bertsche, office manager • Chris Skinner, scale operator • Mark Loudon, merchandiser • Mark Ruff, superintendent • Ron Volk, outside maintenance Ruff Bros. Grain Co.’s 6-million-bushel loop track rail loading terminal on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail line outside of Toluca, IL. Photos by Ed Zdrojewski. Supplier List Aeration fans Decatur Aeration, AIRLANCO Bin sweeps The GSI Group, Sukup Mfg. Co. Bucket elevators The GSI Group, The Essmueller Co. Catwalks Grain Flo Inc. Cleaner InterSystems Contractors Grain Flo Inc., D&L Smith Construction Co. Inc. Conveyors The GSI Group Distributor Schlagel Inc. Elevator buckets Maxi-Lift Inc., Tapco Inc. Grain dryers Zimmerman Grain Dryers Grain temperature system Rolfes@Boone Manlift Sidney Mfg. Co. Steel storage The GSI Group, Behlen Mfg. Co. Temporary storage LeMar Industries Inc. Tower support system . Johnson System Inc. Ever since Ruff Bros. Grain Co. loaded its first 110-car unit train at its Toluca, IL rail terminal (815-863-5114) on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) in September 2004, the construction on the site has been virtually nonstop. At that time, the brand new terminal (featured in the September/October 2004 issue of Grain Journal) boasted three corrugated steel tanks holding a total of 690,000 bushels, one receiving pit and leg, a bulk weigh loadout scale, and a 7,800foot loop track off the BNSF main line. Today, the facility has a total of 6 million bushels of storage, all in upright steel or two temporary storage rings. Ruff Bros. loads at least one train per week out of the terminal and has been known to load two or three in a week’s time. The majority of the work since 2004 has continued to be assigned to Grain Flo Inc., Heyworth, IL (800-842-4875), which built the original facility. Construction of one 78-foot-diameter upright steel tank and both of the temporary storage piles was assigned to D&L Smith Construction Co., Graymont, IL (815-743-5763). “We’ve continued to use D&L on some smaller projects to continue our relationship with that company,” comments President Jesse Ruff. SKS Engineers Inc., Decatur, IL (217877-2100), performed engineering work on the various projects. Year by year, here’s how the terminal at Toluca has grown since 2004. 2005 Ruff Bros. added two 75-foot-diameter and one 45-foot-diameter steel tanks, all from GSI, plus the first temporary storage ring. The two larger tanks stand 90 feet tall at the eaves and have flat bottoms, inside stiffeners, 12-inch GSI sweep augers, and 13-cable Rolfes@Boone grain temperature monitoring systems. A pair of 50-hp New York Blower centrigufal fans provide 1/8 cfm per bushel worth of aeration. The smaller tank, standing 75 feet tall at the eave, is used primarily for blending and occasionally as a wet holding tank. It is outfitted similarly to the larger tanks, except that the aeration fans are rated at 20-hp each and deliver 1/10 cfm per bushel worth of air. All of the tanks are filled and emptied by 20,000-bph GSI drag converyors. The first of two LeMar center fill temporary storage piles standing 305 feet in President Jesse Ruff and Terminal Manager Brian Richard. 54 GJ J/A
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.