Who We Are
One million bushels of upright concrete storage have been built and were first placed in service in October 2022. These bins are served by a bucket elevator system having a capacity of 50,000 bushels an hour, divided among two bucket systems, so can unload and elevate the grain from a typical 1000 bushel truck hopper in about one minute. There is also a 600,000 bushel ground bunker with a Lemar driveover stacker having a capacity of 15,000 bushels/hour for temporary overflow storage, and ground has been prepped for storage of another one million bushels of ground storage. The stacker can empty a truck’s grain hopper in about three minutes. There are also three 20,000 bushel capacity steel bins dedicated to the receipt of problematic loads, for instance wet grain that requires extra drying. Farmers with troublesome load quality issues are welcome at Weskan Grain.
There is being installed as part of upcoming Phase II construction a fully automated Apollo above-ground scale system having a 120,000 pound capacity, with a modern truck ticket interface system. Drivers will be able to reach their paperwork without leaving the truck, either through their window or standing on their driver-side truck step. A six foot long grain probe will shoot samples by underground line to a scalehouse lab to be analyzed for protein, moisture, test weight, and any other relevant test factors. Modern lab equipment will generate results within just a few seconds, which will be printed as a part of the scale ticket. Tickets will be assigned a farm field ID number, and split IDs are allowed.
The facility is located on a 160 acre tract so there is significant staging room for trucks, but wait time for unloads is expected to be minimal due to the high unloading speed. No expense has been spared in the design and construction of the facility, and its unloading speed far surpasses that of the competition. Tours are available upon request.
The facility is fully licensed by the Colorado Department of Agriculture, holding a Commodity Warehouse License and a Commodity Handlers License. It is bonded in complete satisfaction of state requirements, and fully insured in case of destruction by tornado or other peril. Regular business hours are 8:00 to 5:00 weekdays, except at harvest times and seasons when the facility is open with flexible hours however needed, from dawn until past dark. Attention is given to careful management in every detail, with a focus on rapid but prudent speed of loading and unloading.
Work has commenced on an expansion of the facility to add another two million bushels of upright concrete storage space, which is expected to be in service in time for the summer 2023 wheat harvest.
Location & History
In 2022 Weskan Grain LLC, a division of Crossroads Agriculture, constructed a new bulk trainloading grain facility east of Sheridan Lake, Colorado alongside the Stuart Siding of the Colorado Pacific Railroad. The Colorado Pacific is a remaining piece of the former Missouri Pacific Railroad’s main line built west from Kansas City to reach Pueblo, Colorado in 1887. The railroad erected a prominent sign at the siding, marking the distance to Kansas City as 480 miles and the distance to Pueblo as 144 miles. When the line was first opened Stuart siding was developed as a pumped water station for supply to steam locomotive boilers, and a small town of about 300 residents grew up around it. Every trace of the Stuart community disappeared decades ago, and now in its place has arisen the Weskan Grain trainloader, which is located on Highway 96 about four miles east of Sheridan Lake.
The Railroad Connection
The Soloviev Group owns the Colorado Pacific railroad, which serves the Weskan Grain facility. Railroad management is headquartered nearby, at Eads Colorado. The Colorado Pacific is a 120 mile line terminating at NA Junction, about 25 miles east of Pueblo, where it offers connection to both the BNSF and Union Pacific railroads. From NA Junction both companies offer service south to the Gulf of Mexico using joint line trackage via Amarillo and Fort Worth to Houston, Corpus Christi, or to Mexico via other connections. BNSF and Union Pacific also offer service from NA Junction west to Salt Lake City or Los Angeles flour mills, or to the Pacific Northwest for export by ship to Asian markets. The Colorado Pacific line to NA Junction is rated for heavy axle weights, so can accommodate grain cars of up to 3750 bushel capacity.
The Competitive Advantage
Until construction of the facility, local farmers desirous of delivery to facilities capable of handling unit trains were required to send their trucks to Cheyenne Wells, Sharon Springs, or Coolidge, and none of these facilities are served by both BNSF and Union Pacific, so they are captive to one or the other. The Weskan Grain facility is the only trainloader within reasonable trucking distance of its tributary territory which offers access to both of the Class 1 railroads. Apart from the new facility, all of western Kansas and Eastern Colorado is captive to either one or the other of those railroads, and rail shippers from the Kansas state line east to Great Bend have no access to heavy axle weight grain cars, due to obsolete rail size and poor railbed conditions between Scott City and Great Bend.
But perhaps the greatest advantage gained by area farmers using the Weskan Grain facility will be its unload speed. During harvest times, long waits for truck unloading are deadly for efficient utilization of grain trucks traveling from field to elevator. Long distances and long waits for unloading require a larger truck fleet in order to speed harvest to safe storage, and truck drivers are in increasingly short supply in the 2020s. Concrete storage alongside heavy axle weight tracks at facilities which can offer unit train service and connections to dueling class one railroads offer the gold standard for farmers.
Sheridan Lake is at the crossroads of Highways 385 and 96, offering paved roads in all four compass directions. Because of its proximity to Sheridan Lake, Weskan Grain offers an additional competitive advantage over facilities having highway access in only two directions. The facility offers a variety of grain contracts tailored to any particular farmer’s level of risk tolerance, and solicits the business of local farmers.
The Management
The facility is under the management of Will L. Bramblett. Mr. Bramblett was raised near Dexter New Mexico on a cotton and alfalfa farm. He obtained an agricultural economics degree from Texas Tech University in 2002 and started his career in the grain division of Archer Daniels Midland, where he was employed for five years. He then commenced work for Scoular Grain Company as a manager of shuttle loading facilities and truck houses in Kansas, Iowa and Missouri. After 15 years with Scoular in that capacity, he became CEO of Weskan Grain, a division of the Crossroads Ag division of the Soloviev Group. Mr. Bramblett was in charge of the design of the facility at Stuart Siding, and incorporated every feature he wished he could have had at the older facilities he managed in his earlier career. He was located onsite during the construction, and lived at the facility nonstop for its first harvest season, for milo in October 2022. Mr. Bramblett is married, with a daughter and two sons.