The Dan Patch Line bridge across the Minnesota River will swing shut to carry rail traffic this spring for the first time in nearly a decade, officials said last week, and it's being set in motion by an unlikely source: the Panama Canal.
A long-awaited project to widen the canal is scheduled to be completed in May, allowing larger ships to pass through the historic link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
"That means bigger ships will be calling at New Orleans," said Mark Wegner, president of the Twin Cities & Western Railroad Co., which owns the bridge. "That means New Orleans will be more competitive. And that means the [Mississippi] river will be more competitive."
Wegner said he believes barge traffic from the Minnesota River port of Savage will be on the rise this year. The port is being affected by far-flung economic forces, he explained.
A worldwide glut of iron ore has lowered prices and idled ore fleets, and Wegner expects those ships to stay busy by hauling grain.
There's a lot of grain to haul. Low prices last fall persuaded many farmers to keep their corn, wheat and soybeans in storage.
"Probably 70 percent of last year's harvest is sitting in a country elevator or on the farms," Wegner said.
Rail traffic on the bridge won't be high, probably about one train a day, Wegner said. But they will be the first trains on the bridge since 2007.
