In the Crystal, Minnesota area, a railway car traveling on the Candian Pacific line was carrying a load of corn and spilled its entire contents over a stretch of about 2,000 feet, which is about a third of a mile.
Assuming it was approximately 1 1/2 inches deep, one reporter estimated that it was about 900 bushels of corn, which had a value of about $3,465 by that day’s corn price on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Twitter user Mike Parker shared an amazing photo that quickly went viral. It drew comparisons to the famous “yellow brick road” from the Wizard of Oz.
Corn spilled on the tracks by my house the ducks and deer haven’t found it yet pic.twitter.com/UIdcT0aWKO
— Mike Parker (@Mike1Parker) January 5, 2020
When people first saw the photo, they were skeptical because the corn spilled so perfectly and smoothly. However, the spill happened in a well-populated area so other people were able to quickly verify that the image was indeed legit and the spill was real.
One Twitter user who happens to be the agriculture reporter for Star Tribune, Adam Belz, posted a video explaining that it was indeed a legit image. His video shows the exact same view in Mike Parker’s photo that he shared on Twitter. He said before he saw it with his own eyes, he didn’t believe it was real, either.
IT'S REAL!
ht @Mike1Parker pic.twitter.com/uw6k4Mqgq4
— Adam Belz (@adambelz) January 7, 2020
Adam was also kind enough to post a video of his hands sifting through the corn.
Footnote pic.twitter.com/A6yu3F5QyM
— Adam Belz (@adambelz) January 7, 2020
Later in the day, a spokesperson from Canadian Pacific Railway confirmed that it was real and that a crew would be cleaning it up.
Someone asked where all of the critters were. After all, for them, this would be a delicious unexpected feast. One guy commented that while there were tons of deer and raccoons in the area, they apparently didn’t get the memo.
Unfortunately, and this seems unfair to me, railroad workers were beginning to clean up the corn using a high-rail vacuum truck. I wish they had just left it for the animals, but I’m sure the workers had reasons for not doing so. Maybe enough corn got left behind to at least give the forest creatures a nice little treat.
