I can’t find a website for them yet, but “Tiger Cool Express” is a new start up HQ in Kansas City that will begin with 200 new domestic service reefer double stack containers. These containers add to the existing reefer container fleets of Cold Train and C.R. England.
The CEO of Tiger Cool is Thomas Finkbiner who was once head of NS’s Triple Crown RoadRailer operation and then VP Intermodal at NS.
Temperature controlled movements tend to be long haul trucking moves. For example, Lettuce from California to New York and chicken from Arkansas to California. They tend to be heavy volume because everybody eats 2 or 3 times a day. This business diverted to truck not because of superior economics by trucking, but because of inane government regulations. I’ll go into detail on that if anyone wants me to.
This is a tremendous opportunity for the railroads and they’re slowly clawing their way back into a business they were driven out of. I just wish I could be part of it.
The resumes for the 3 lead guys - both in the press release and on the website - are pretty impressive. [tup]
greyhounds, maybe it’s not too late - see: http://www.tigercoolexpress.com/careers/ , esp. the Manager Rail Logistics and Manager Highway Logistics positions . . . [8D] [pun !]
I’ve seen refrigerated containers on trucks on the road and in trains here in eastern Pennsylvania recently, esp. around the Bethlehem intermodal terminal. So there appears to be an economic use and market for them, despite the strident claims to the contrary by some posters here a few years back . . . [:-^]
Radar, thank you for the website. Paul, I think I’m too late in more ways than one.
Anyway, they seem to have decent private equity funding lined up - which would be a major hurdle cleared. Their senior management has the experience and stature to be taken seriously. Best of luck guys.
I was looking over what they had put on their site. Getting in business is easy. Getting freight is also easy. Making money and not being a charity that is the trick. I would like to see what their cans looks like. My comments on 53’ containers still stands. The loss of two pallet positions can affect marketing. Rgds IGN
When it comes to containers - they all have nearly the same load limit (which is nominally set by the maximum weight trucks are permitted to have on the road). 20 foot, 40 foot, 48 foot and 53 foot containers can all haul nearly the same weight of contents. The difference is how many cubes are needed to get to that weight capacity.
I fully agree that the current design of the domestic refrigerated container has some drawbacks. Both in terms of cubic capacity and weight of the container/chassis combination on the highway.
But remember, this is Rail Perishable 1.0. What is important now is that there is an increasing recognition of the market opportunity for rail movement of temperature controlled products. People with experience and status are moving to seize that opportunity - and getting private funding to act.
We’ve got various systems in play. There are temp controlled truckers, such as Prime and Stevens, who use TOFC, we’ve got RailEx with its boxcar unit trains of produce (along with a new similar start up coming on line), and we’ve got the reefer container operators such as Cold Train and C.R. England. (Now add Tiger Cool).
Each system will have problems and advantages. Over time the problems will be worked through and the advantages pressed. The various systems will be improved and fitted to their best use.
What is important is that there is now a general recognition of the opportunity. And not just a focus on the problems.
The last time I checked the USDA numbers they have barely moved the needle. But they did move it. Rail share of the west coast perishable volume has gone from something like 9% to something like 11%.
From what I know of Finkbiner, and I have sat in meetings with him, he’s not going to be content with anything short of big success. That’s what it’s going to take. The US Army calls it “The Will Of The Commander.” It’s not something easily gauged. It’s just the will to succeed. And it can overcome obstacles like nothing else in the world… As long as the person in charge has the resources to get to the objective.
I’m believing Finkbiner still has the will, and has acquired the resources, to get this thing done. I could be wrong. We’re going to see.
Re Tropicana : One of the issues with southbound refridgerated freight is unlike dry freight there is a fair amount of northbound refrigerated freight. Produce and juice. The pressure in this sector is a little different. It affects the southbound freight. The biggest change on Florida bound freight is that normally carriers hauling freight south generally will not book southbound without having something to take back out. This creates a situation where carriers make money going south and break even or make a little going north. The thing for rail is FEC tends to concentrate on dry freight. Cause they can make enough on the southbound, and they can afford to haul northbound empty. Another words they hustle. CSX has a lot of cheap freight and has not had to hustle to make a buck. CSX does not run their trains as fast and they don’t have the straight line FEC does. Yes they haul when they have to ie the juice trains. My opinion about Florida, if Norfolk Southern where there I think they would go after the produce. One place is lettuce, and several other types of sensitive produce. FEC only goes as far as Jacksonville on their own rails, so they can market in a narrow market. FEC does solicit freight from as far north as Atlanta. They will pickup freight there and truck to Jacksonville then rail south. Norfolk Southern does feed them a lot of freight, however it is NS ‘s freight. Now look what happened to a lot of traffic lanes after the breakup of Conrail. Because there was a lot more long haul from Northeast to the Midsouth it made perfect sense for CSX and NS to go after. And to start developing new rail lanes. Before it was strictly a short haul for Conrail and CR did not put a lot of resources into going after the market. Now going back to refridgerated containers. One of the newer techniques being used for lettuce fills a 53’ trailer all the way to the back door without going overaxle in the loading process. The problem 53’ containers have with it is that beca
Rumor has it that since Finkbiner left NS, all NS has been doing is executing Finkbiner’s strategic plan for intermodal. They guy really must really be sharp. I hope this works out well.
narig01 The problem 53’ containers have with it is that because of the way they balance one looses 4 bins in the tail (bulk bins of lettuce are double stacked) Now if the refridgeration unit were mounted on the front of the box like a truck trailer it would change the balance… I’m not sure how I missed some of this discussion. To reply to the question On a highway refridgerated trailer the refridgeration unit is hung on the nose of the trailer. The cargo area of the trailer is the full 53’ length of the trailer minus the thick insulated walls. On a 53’ refridgerated container you have to fit the container inside the 53’ well of the railcar. This means the refrigeration unit has to fit within that well also. You now have to shorten the box itself so the refrigeration unit can fit in the well. This reduces the volume of cargo inside the box. Rgds IGN
Paul, this is quite interesting. A little more care is exercised than was in the first shipment of lettuce as recorded in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.
I never had any experience with receiving chemicals by rail, but I received several by truck over a period of six years. Many of the chemicals I received needed to be kept freezing (and one or two were damaged irretrievably if the temperature was much below room temperature); one (ammonium hydroxide solution) had to be kept cool; once I received a drum of ammonium hydroxide in a dry truck–and I could not enter it because the truck was full of the vapor and I was not respirator certified (my manager had given me a bye on that because I told him my wife would be unhappy if I had to shave my beard off), but I had no trouble finding a man qualified on truck lifts who had to be so certified in his work.
The only weight consideration that concerned me was that of sulfuric acid in drums–a trailer load would have gone through the bottom, and the supplier knew that. One supplier had the practice of loading down the middle from front to rear, with two pallets side by side, about in the center of the van–and one shipment came in with the outer drums on those two pallets hanging over the front of the pallet because the driver apparently had had to brake suddenly (only plastic wrap around the drums). Another supplier used empty pallets to space the load.
Been there, done that - Gulf Oil Refinery, Phila., for interior trackwork, circa 1982 - except no waivers granted, so same reaction from wife. Perhaps because of a bad fire in 1975 or so when 4 Philly firefighters were killed - or was the facility really that unsafe ? [:-,] But most of us thought it was because the manager was a 1950’s - 1960’s guy who didn’t want any facial hair on his property in that post-Vietnam, anti-hippie era, and was using this as a strategem to impose & enforce his will on the workforce. Strangely, the railcrews who served the place were exempt from this requirement . . .
