Ravenna losing 170 Jobs

[iamjacobm]

Sad news from Central Nebraska.

http://www.nebraska.tv/story/23293815/l ... n-november

A small town loses its biggest employer, as Ravenna's Leprino Foods will shut its doors November 8th.

"After careful consideration of our supply chain we made the difficult decision to close the Ravenna facility," said Robert Schwartz, a member of the Leprino Foods corporation.

Officials made this announcement Thursday after deciding they need to move their operation to Colorado, where most of the dairy has come from in recent years.

"One of the conditions was the challenging milk supply within Nebraska," said Schwartz.

Though the decision may make financial sense for Leprino Foods, this is going to be a huge blow to Ravenna's workforce.

"It's terrible they're closing here. A lot of people work at Leprino's in this town. It's going to be bad," said Mary Rodriguez.

Daniel Hay agreed, "Hate to see it happen. Put a lot of people out of work and a lot of hardship."

"I could see a lot of it, some or more of the businesses closing down and us losing the business that we have," said Aaron Reicks.

November 8th will be the last day of work for 170 employees.

A town of 1400 losing 170 jobs will probably cripple if not kill it.  I have a few family connections to the town, really unfortunate news.

[RNcyanide]

Wow. Awful to hear. Never would have guess Colorado as a dairy state.

[iamjacobm]

Rumor that BNSF is moving their subdivision in Ravenna to Broken Bow now.  This town looks like it is in trouble.

[RNcyanide]

Any reason that might be?

[S33]

ouch.

[Brad]

Rumor that BNSF is moving their subdivision in Ravenna to Broken Bow now.  This town looks like it is in trouble.

I highly doubt that will change much.  The actual "Ravenna Subdivision" runs from Lincoln Nebraska to Ravenna, Nebraska.  Railroads changes the limits of the subdivisions from time to time to keep a balance for the managers and track workers of each subdivision.  In this case, they would be adding an additional 50 miles to the Ravenna Sub.  Its not uncommon for railroad employees to work away from home on a regular basis.  I am going to guess most people that work on the Ravenna sub live in Lincoln.

Its kind of like the Union Pacific.  There are a ton of UP employees that live in the Omaha area, but most crews change out in Missouri Valley or Fremont.  The UP has the Boone Subdivision that runs east from Missouri Valley, the Columbus Subdivision that runs west from Fremont, the Blair Subdivision that runs from Missouri Valley to Fremont via Blair, and also the Omaha Subdivision that runs Fremont to Missouri Valley via Omaha.

There are a lot of engineers and conductors that hop a train in their home town and go to the away terminal, catch a cab to a hotel, get their 8 hours rest and back on the train to their home terminal.

A quick google search doesn't even show any hotels in Ravenna so they were probably heading to broken bow anyways.  No they will just be cutting down the amount of time they are transporting crews around.

[jessep28]

And less money for RailCrew Xpress.

[Brad]

And less money for RailCrew Xpress.

May be a little, but they in a lot of situations the trains change crews on the edge of town anwyas so they still need them.

Lots of time the crews on the Creston sub (Creston IA to Lincoln, NE) will change out in Ashland, NE and the van bring them from Lincoln to Ashland.

[iamjacobm]

Thanks Brad, that makes a lot of sense.

I have just been getting a lot of the small town gossip lately.  My grandparents closed their grocery store in a town of 300 on Highway 2 a few months back and have been hearing from people in a lot of towns about how this is a great opportunity for them to start a business b/c xyz and moving out of their towns.