Grain elevators are tools for receiving grain through a variety of channels, such as trucks or barges. These facilities can also store, clean, blend, and export grain upon delivery. Before you shop around for a quality grain elevator, it’s important to understand the purposes, processes, and benefits of various types. Below, you can learn about the different types of grain elevators, specifically the two most common around—country and terminal.
Country Elevators
Country elevators receive grain directly from the farmers. The elevators receive the grain via truck or railroad, and upon delivery, the grain can be effectively used for weighing, storing, blending, and sending to the next step of the process. Additionally, the grain in country elevators will quite often go through a cleaning or drying process before being swiftly moved to their next destination, which can sometimes be terminal elevators.
Terminal Elevators
Terminal elevators are larger units for grain storage than country elevators. The purpose of these types of elevators is weighing, cleaning, storing, and blending together the grain before moving forward to the next destination.
Although you can weigh grain in both country and terminal elevators, the ladder can weigh a larger amount of grain than the former. Terminal elevators can be effectively used for storage, but beyond that, they are a suitable means of exporting grain as well. Grain can be easily loaded into these elevators via truck, railroad, or even barge; whichever mode of transportation your process calls for.
The topic of different types of grain elevators might sound daunting at first but, as you can see, it’s a fairly straightforward concept. Both grain and terminal elevators can serve many of the same functions, but the key difference is the amount of grain that can be effectively handled, stored, and weighed at once. If you’re in need of an efficient means of transporting and loading grain to and from elevators, we can help. At DoverMEI, we can install rail car unloading systems to assist you with any suitable material transportation and handling needs.