An emergency order would force the railway to give priority to moving corn to Foster Farms.
Trains magazine reported that Foster Farms has faced repeated service disruptions that left it short of feed to “the point has been reached when millions of chickens will be killed and other livestock will suffer because of UP’s service failures."
Specifically, Foster Farms’ facilities in Traver and Turlock, Calif. rely on a 100-car Union Pacific route that transports corn from the Midwest; Foster Farms then uses the corn for feed on its chicken and turkey farms.
Since February of this year, however, Union Pacific’s service failures have resulted in “numerous instances” of Foster Farms suspending production, and the processor has incurred “considerable costs” in seeking alternate transportation modes, Trains magazine reported.
