Ritter, Iowa — The skyline at Ritter looks much different these days.
For many decades, the skyline in the tiny burg north of Sheldon was dominated by a number of concrete grain silos at the Farmers Coop Society grain elevator. But recently, those silos are missing in Ritter’s skyline.
We talked to Farmers Coop Society Agronomy Operations Manager and Eastern Division Manager Tom Olsen about the Ritter facility. He says they removed the silos for safety reasons.
According to Olsen, not having the silos won’t mean big operational changes for FCS. He says while the terminal is on the Union Pacific Railroad, they haven’t used the rail access in a number of years because the railroads all want 110-unit grain trains now, and that’s not possible at the Ritter location. He says all grain leaves the facility by truck these days.
Olsen says they can’t move grain between bins right now because the grain tubing, called a “grain leg” was attached to the concrete silos.
He says they’re working on getting the system operational again.
He says they hope to have the whole facility running normally in about a month.
