California feed and poultry producer seeks emergency order due to Union Pacific service failures.

UP says it’s working to improve service to Foster Farms, asks regulators to deny emergency service order.

'The largest chicken producer in the western U.S. has asked federal regulators to issue an emergency service order that would direct Union Pacific to prioritize corn shipments that thousands of dairy cattle and millions of chickens and turkeys depend upon.

​​”The point has been reached when millions of chickens will be killed and other livestock will suffer because of UP’s service failures,” Foster Farms wrote in its request to the Surface Transportation Board this week. . .

Foster Farms asked the STB to direct UP to prioritize delivery of unit trains to its California facilities for at least the next 30 days. Foster Farms leases four unit trains from UP as part of the railroad’s grain shuttle program.

“These service failures, which began in February 2022, have resulted in numerous instances where Foster Farms has suspended its production and distribution of feed for tens of thousands of dairy cattle and tens of millions of chickens and turkeys which consume corn meal supplied by Foster Farms,” the company told the STB. “It has also resulted in Foster Farms incurring considerable costs in an increasingly desperate and futile attempt to try to find alternative means and transportation modes to obtain and ship the huge quantities corn its facilities must have each week that UP delivered in the past with reasonable regularity but has demonstrated, without any doubt, that it can no longer do so for the indefinite future under its current operating plans and priorities.”'>>>

https://www.trains.com/trn/california-feed-and-poultry-producer-seeks-emergency-order-due-to-union-pacific-service-failures/?