Buildings large enough to drive a freight train through and refrigerated cars tracked and monitored by satellite are the key components in a plan to move fresh produce quickly from the West Coast to Rotterdam. Long Island-based produce distributor is nearing completion of two new warehouses, one in Wallula, Wash., and the other in Rotterdam Industrial Park, that will serve as end points on the 3,000-mile route of the weekly 55-car produce express trains.
Until now, the fastest freight trains took up to nine days to go from coast to coast. But Ampco Distribution Services Management LLC of Riverhead, Suffolk County, has an agreement with Union Pacific Railroad and CSX Transportation to cut the trip to five days. That’s comparable to truck.
But the two trains – each of which will carry as much produce as 200 tractor-trailer trucks – also will use less fuel, giving them an advantage that grows as the price of diesel fuel rises.
If all goes well, the first train will roll in late September.
When Ampco began its planning, diesel fuel cost $1.50 a gallon, said spokesman Paul Esposito. Today, it’s twice that. Switching to rail will save 84,000 gallons of fuel a week, or 4.3 million a year. With the doubling of fuel prices, the $6.4 million in annual savings grows to $12.8 million.
The trains are expected to cut fuel consumption by about two-thirds, according to figures from Esposito. And that may help cut consumer prices.
With current shipping, “it costs more to ship a box of lettuce than the lettuce itself costs,” said Neil Golub, president and chief executive officer of Golub Corp., the company that operates Price Chopper supermarkets.
Golub made his comments last fall at a news conference announcing the rail plan. Ampco, after looking at sites in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, settled on Rotterdam Industrial Park for its new East Coast distribution center after being approached by Schenecta