Hence, the draw areas of terminal elevators in the restructured grain supply chain are much larger than the draw areas of country elevators prior to restructuring. Moreover, many grain elevator cooperatives now truck grain from multiple country elevators, which act as feeders, to a single terminal elevator. The longer storage times at terminal elevators are due to the fact that shippers need to consolidate more grain to fill 100 railcar shipments than one-two railcar or even six-26 railcar shipments. Therefore, while it is clear that transporting grain over the rail network via shuttle service is more efficient than moving grain on mixed-manifest trains, previous studies have not explicitly examined whether or not the negative impacts that may occur upstream of the rail network outweigh the benefits on the rail network. The analysis presented in this paper aims to fill this gap, while providing a simple framework that helps convey the main trade-offs involved. The approach adopted is to present a stylized representation of the underlying system, capturing essential features without the clutter of non-essential detail.