US railroads are rerouting ethanol shipments to avoid bottlenecks in Chicago, particularly for delivery to the East Coast, where supplies are running low, rail company officials said Thursday. David Garin, BNSF’s vice president of industrial products, said Chicago — already congested as the US’ busiest freight rail hub — has been severely impacted by winter weather, leading to delays on routes using interchanges there for all commodities. Though BNSF does not serve East Coast markets, Garin was speaking at a meeting of the US Surface Transportation Board’s Rail Energy Transportation Advisory Committee as a representative of the rail industry. “Chicago is a big challenge for us,” Garin said. “We’ve looked at longer routing. It may not seem to make sense to [ship ethanol on rail] through Arkansas to the East Coast, but right now where we’re trying to avoid interchanges in Chicago.” Ethanol inventories […]