In Ohio where i live there is a Walmart store located next to the old Toledo Terminal track…Prior to Walmart opening there was a refinery on the site and it had some rail spurs. It seems odd that even in a case where a store builds right on top of tracks they still have truck delivery only. Also in Maumee Ohio there is a Meijers store right next to an active NS yard and they have all truck delivery. It seems to contradict the notion that stores dont have rail service because of lack of track. Just a thought anybody have any clues as to why? Thanx!
My answer would be “logistics”. Walmart already has a distribution system set up. To modify that system to accommodate rail deliveries would probably not be cost effective.
Also, I expect that the railroad probably would not be thrilled with the idea of setting out one (or maybe two) car(s) a day. The costs would undoubtedly be quite high.
He is right is called logistics and the fact that 90% of all deliveyes to the stores are made by Walm-mart trucks themselves. I work for them as a sales assc. and we have fleets of trucks that all they do is drive to the stores and make deliverys to the stores. The hard part about going to RR service would be 1 the scheduling of delieveries and 2 some of our shipments are called remix which are LTL shipments imagine having a RR pu and deliver the same car to 4/5 stores in 2 days.
Ed. Are some of the deliveries to the distribution centers still in the containers coming directly from China? You mentioned that 10% are not in company trucks.
That other 10% are contracted out to Mega carriers like Swift Schiender Werner and J.B. Hunt among others. Yes alot of the procusts we sell are unfortanatly made in China however there are still alot of them made right here in the USA also. Remember this also 1.3 Million americans have jobs DIRECTLY because of Wal-Mart let alone how many indirect jobs in the other industries. I for one am glad I have my job at the company yes it may not pay the greatest but they still pay taxes and wages better than some companies. I do not want to see this thread turn into a bash Wal-mart either they donate alot of money to charites like Childerns Miracle Network around here last year my store alone gave 60K and we are a small store not to mention all the times when one assoc has problems we all pull for them.
Delivery to a retail location by rail in this day and age would be rare.
But what about the distribution centers that supply the retail stores? The Old Dog would suspect that such locations are often served by rail.
Have fun
A few years ago Walmart built a new distribution center in Shelby, North Carolina. It is about a 1/4 mile from a CSX mainline, but they did not want a siding. Everything is trucked in/trucked out.
The main problem is JIT inventory which stands for “Just In Time.” Most companies only order when their par stocks reach a crtical point that matches the turn around transit time for a re-order.These days noone wants to have money invested in inventory waiting to be used for a unreasonable amount of time. Railroads, unfortunately, as we know, in many instances cannot move X amount of goods from point A to Point B within a very tight time constraint, hence outside of bulk commodities, this service has gone to trucks. Interurbans as well as Class One lines used to provide this service. I know on the Indiana RR ( the original one), you could order a car part in the morning from Indianapolis Ind and have it the next day direct from Detroit, Mich. I think the expedited run was called The Aeroplane. One would think you would need similar schedualled freight runs versus as needed to do this do to the fact someone could plan around schedualled departures but I am probably wrong.Someone with more expertise can fill that one in. Hope this sheds some light, however dim…
The box stores rely on the Distribution Center concept to stock their store shelves. If rail is used at all, it is used to stock the Distribution Center to receive car loads of product that can be sent as needed to the stores that the DC serves. No single store would have the sales market to be able to use carloads of product. The trucks that operate between the DC and the stores carry hundreds of products for stock in each of the retail outlets.
Ed. I certainly did not intend to bash Wal-Mart. My question was answered by dekemd about the distribution center. On next trip to Rochelle I plan on visiting the new W-M distribution center in Sterling.
In rural Iowa, north of Davenport is the Family Dollar warehouse with hundreds of trucks there on some days, with many hauling containers. Land values were probably cheap enough to offset transportation costs.
Containers are delivered by truck. Since most of the imported stuff arrives at a big box distribution center by container - it comes by truck. Outbound is all truck - thus, no need for rail.
dd
If it was cheaper, they would.
Adrianspeeder
To expand on the JIT concept - each item the cashier scans gets recorded, and when trigger points are hit, a set quantity gets loaded out to the next truck headed for that store. Odds are the computer is the only one who knows whats on each truck.
Same thing happens at the grocery chains.
Larry
Before I retired, we tried a JIT concept in manufacturing. It worked great for Toyota etc. but in a small shop, any mechanical failure would cause idling of other machines. Now here is the kicker. A part depot used the JIT as well. Perhaps he would have unexpected high sales on a low volume part so he was waiting for order from manufacturer who was waiting on a shipment from Taiwan. Got the picture? And our customer was wanting his order filled on time.
Wal-Mart has this all figured out with smart people and lots of capital to work with.
One reason you see super-whatever next to the tracks is the cost of the property and location, location, location.
Many through roads were constructed where there was the need for goods and services to travel. Railroad went a long way in establishing these patterns, so the highways naturally followed the tracks in many locations. When looking for a site for a store, you look where the traffic is. Like so many things in life, follow the money.
Not too many people are interested in being next to a railroad track, making the land less desirable, less costly. When you are building a big store, cheaper land is a good thing.
The previous comments on JIT inventory control explains why there is no siding. I, too, worked at a DC for a while and even though it had a rail siding, I only saw one car-load come in, ever.
When I worked for Target we got 1 truck early in the morning, unloaded it, and it was traded for the next load the next day. We got a truck at the same time, every day, no matter what. I doubt the retailers want have staff on hand that sit around waiting for the railroad to deliver one car whenever it could get around to dropping one car.
Like was said, we got what the computers told us we needed on the next truck, based on sales. We did know what was coming and when.
Christmas season we got more trucks faster, same with certain sales. We would get a whole truck of toilet paper for dollar days. I swear some people waited to buy it once a year! We could sell 4 truckloads in a week. I used to build a display that was a trailer’s worth of TP and 2 of us would try to keep it full and fronted. It was insane.
While the actual vehicle’s arriving at DC’s are trucks or containers to say the the DC’s are not rail served is in a number of cases a misnomer. While they are not served by rail car load service, a high number of the trailers and containers moved in rail intermodal service to facilities near the DC’s for over the road delivery to the DC.
I frequently pass a local intermodal trailer parking facility, the number of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club trailers on hand is amazing.