Many of the crops you are seeing growing in fields in Door and Kewaunee counties will travel the country later this year on a railroad car. Earlier this spring, Rio Creek Feed Mill received a $1.5 million loan from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to help fund the construction of a 1.339-million-bushel grain bin, a support tower, loading equipment, and unloading equipment at its facility in Luxemburg. The improvements are expected to make loading and unloading feed cars more efficient, leading to annual transportation cost savings of $600,000 annually in the next two years. The Luxemburg facility sees hundreds of rail cars come and go every year, taking thousands of trucks off the road. Sam Barta from Rio Creek Feed Mill says making sure its rail service remains up-to-date is critical for helping local farmers find buyers for the crops they work hard on trying to grow.

Barta says the last grain bin built at the Luxemburg facility was in 2019, joking that at the time they thought it would be the last one they would ever need. The funding was part of the approximately $5 million awarded through the Freight Railroad Infrastructure Improvement Program (FRIIP). Two other projects in Reedsburg and Wrightstown also received loans through FRIIP.

Picture courtesy of Rio Creek Feed Mill