It seems the RailEx trains have been successful running from CA & WA to to NY. On their website they are advertising expansion to the Midwest and Southeast in 2013.
http://www.railexusa.com/site/current-train-schedules.php
My question is…Do you think this concept would work for dry freight? Dedicated boxcar trains running between DC’s with trucks picking up & delivering truckload & LTL freight at either end?
It already is with TL and LTL - it’s called UPS
Acctually, we’ve got two different start up firms moving perishables by rail out of Washington. Railex and Cold Train. Both are intermodal systems.
RailEx gathers the produce by truck, cross docks it into reefer box cars for the line haul, then cross docks it back into trucks for delivery.
Cold Train uses reefer double stack containers.
My money’s on Cold Train. The containers give more flexibility, are more readily back loaded to the west and don’t require new massive transload facilities at the destinations. Cold Train doesn’t have to move non-revenue empties west while RailEx does. Cold Train can more easily expand by using existing rail IM facilities in the south and east. RailEx needs brick and mortar. Cold Train is able to offer eastbound departures six days per week. RailEx has never continually established a more than once per week frequency. Bet Cold Train.
The box car trains you describe were common in the past. They handled LCL. Examples included:
MS-1 (Merchandise Special) on the IC which departed Chicago every business day evening for Memphis and intermediate points.
LCL1 and LCL2 on the Pennsylvainia between Jersey and Pittsburg.
The “Overnights” on the SP. i.e. the Arizona Overnight loaded truck gathered LCL in LA and had it available in Phoenix the next morning.
I think the railroads had an inherent cost and service advantage for LCL moving the distances of the cited trains. The Federal government just drove 'em out of the business through inane economic regulation
Railex has had two trains per week out of its Delano facility almost since it opened. Its schedule lists two trains per week from Wallula.
Thank you for the correction.
Interesting post, thanks for highlighting the differences between Railex and Cold Train.
But Cold Train really does have to either find westbound loads for those containers or absorb the costs for non-revenue empty return trips. Those refrigerated containers have to get back to Quincy WA somehow.
Also, Railex has the opportunity to combine less-than-truckload lots from their destination facility into full truckloads to the receiver. For example, apples and pears coming from different growers going to the same eastern supermarket DC in the same truck. Since Railex has western plants in CA and WA, shipments from each of those facilities can be combined in NY for distribution. Cold Train cannot do that - each lot needs to be a full separate container.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Railex also promotes its service of providing on-site refrigerated warehousing, which is critical in the metropolitan Northeast, where some restaurants and grocers have limited space for their own storage, and just-in-time delivery is the name of the game.