Breakfast at Seattle’s Pier 86

As a born-and-bred Iowa native, I am always interested in agricultural practices where ever I travel.  On a trip to Seattle last summer, I took the opportunity to take an early morning walk down the beach to Elliot Bay on Puget Sound, where I got a close-up look at Seattle’s Pier 86.  The pier was built in 1970 to move grain, unloading trucks and trains and transferring the grain onto ships bound for the far East as well as Central and South America.

A grain handling pier in Seattle's port

In the photo to the left, the ship Ji May is being loaded.  At normal operating capacity  the terminal can load 3000 tons of grain per hour through twin 48-inch conveyors.  In addition to the ability to hold and unload long trains (current capacity is 175 cars, expandable to 215), the unloading operations on shore also include a truck unloader which inclines a loaded semi tractor-trailer to unload 250 tons per hour.

Current capacity is 4.2 million bushels of storage.  The Port of Seattle owns the grain terminal and it is under long-term lease by Cargill, the nation’s largest grain dealer.  The terminal is served by both the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad.

In 1979 the terminal loaded a record-breaking 1,977,000 tons of grain into 85 vessels.  Time to load a standard 15,000 ton bulk hauling vessel is about 5 hours.

Note:  All technical information in this post is courtesy of the Port of Seattle and the information placards in Elliot Bay Park.