Freight Rail Delivers Iowa Ethanol to National and World Markets
Consistently the nation’s leading corn producer, the Hawkeye State also leads the way on ethanol production at about 2 billion gallons per year. With only about 7 percent of ethanol consumed in state, railroads have a key role to play in shipping Iowa ethanol — and other agricultural and manufacturing products — to destinations across North America and for export internationally.
Iowa's 16 freight railroads operate over 3,834 miles of track and employ 3,181 in the Hawkeye State.* It would have taken approximately 17.4 million additional truckloads to move the 313.8 million tons of freight that moved by rail in Iowa in 2017. Food products and chemicals make up the majority of freight rail shipments beginning in Iowa. Coal is the largest rail import to the state.
*2017 data
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43 percent
decrease
in rail rates, 1981-2014.
That means the average rail customer today can ship nearly twice as much freight for about the same price it paid more than 30 years ago.
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