Good Saves Put Perfect Peak Within Reach
2004-12-22 edition of “BNSF Today”
BNSF and UPS employees are working around the clock to achieve another perfect peak season – deliver all of Big Brown’s holiday packages on time, that is. The two companies entered the homestretch this week with 31,165 loads successfully shipped.
It’s been no small task. Since peak season began Nov. 26, the number of “good saves” made by BNSF employees and its service partners have been too numerous to describe in a single article. However, the following examples demonstrate BNSF’s commitment to perform flawlessly for UPS during this critical shipping season:
Four set-outs of bad-order cars requiring recovery handling occurred at Arkansas City and Wellington, Kan.; Havre, Mont.; and Pampa, Texas. Crews caught and compensated for all of the problems by, among other things, running one-car specials – one on the Havre-Seattle route, and the other on the Wellington-Los Angeles route. In both cases, the special trains actually caught up to the original trains, with no impact on UPS’ service. In Amarillo, Texas, a car with a bad wheel was identified prior to departure, and Mechanical employees replaced it in just 22 minutes.
Also in Amarillo, Team BNSF “cherry picked” a total of three trailers that were misrouted by UPS. Another trailer had to be cherry picked because its roof was torn, leaving UPS packages exposed. In one instance, BNSF helped find team drivers to truck the trailers to their destinations. Crews in St. Paul, Minn., also did some cherry picking after four UPS trailers had to be loaded onto another train due to capacity constraints. The trailers were subsequently trucked to Chicago.
A locomotive computer problem occurred near Defiance, N.M., Dec. 16. BNSF’s mechanical team performed temporary repairs allowing the train to continue on to Winslow, Ariz., where it picked up a new lead locomotive. The train arrive