I was wondering what is the reason behind the rapid growth in reefer car traffic? Shipping by reefer cars seemed almost dead ten years ago, now they can’t build news ones fast enough to keep up with demand. It’s great to see this business growing for the railroads, plus it helps keep trucks off the highways, its just strange to see this businesscome back from near extinction?
James
It seems sometimes that the reefer traffic is seasonal(like grain).The reason the railroads have to build more is because more produce is coming from Mexico and California.Just my opinion
stay safe
Joe
The railroads (primarily the UP and CSXT) designed specific service to handle perishables.
Keep in mind that a lot of new reefers will have to be built to compensate for the older ones that have to be retired. UP, for one, has grown its perishable business over the past couple of years, so the demand for equipment is going to be there. But even the newest “traditional” PFE reefers are over 30 years old. Rebuilding helps, but age will catch up with them within ten years. The cars being built these days haul nearly twice as much, and do it more efficiently…better cooling units, GPS to locate them and detect (sometimes correct!) malfunctions. I suspect that shippers would prefer cars like that.
UP is supposed to be getting 1500 new reefers from Trinity Industries, but I haven’t seen anything yet (if you know me and where I work and live, that’s a good sign that none have been built yet!). Has anyone heard about these cars, and what number series thay’ll occupy (no speculation here, please–we’ve tried the wild guesses already!)
Late note: less than an hour after I posted the previous message, I got my answer from some other freight-car freaks: the new UP reefers are coming out now, in the ARMN 110000 series. Big, white cars.
Does anyone know how successful the Artic car Cryogenic reefers have faired? I saw a few running the rails, but that was a couple of years ago and haven’t seen any since.
Deregulation has a lot to do with the return of perishable traffic. Prior to dereg, perishables had regulated rates by rail but perishable truck rates were unregulated, so it was tough to compete.
Thanks for the info. I see a lot of BNSF reefers and some UP ones up here in PA.
Thanks,
James
I have seen a few Cryo-style reefers running through Milwaukee, but that’s all. Probably a limited success.
I used to live near the UP line through West Allis, and I saw ARMN cars all the time. What does ARMN stand for? I got a picture of one of these cars, they look very sharp! I was amazed to see black smoke coming out of one of these cars one cold winter day last year, then I realized that they have diesel-powered reefer units!
-Mark Hintz
http://www.geocities.com/fuzzybroken
Anything that puts traffic back on the rails is to be applauded. Possibly Amtrak’s exiting the “freight” business is a mistaked . I would imagine that greater cooperation with the frieght railroads could see a string of modern high-speed trucked reefers tacked on the back of some Amtraks for more revenue for Amtrak and better service for perishable shippers where the market for complete trains of reefers doesn’t exist. Or perhaps reefers can be tacked on the rear of intermodel hotshots. Dave Klepper