The load is a long haul of ceiling tile. From Cloquet, MN to Pearland, TX. Over 1,200 miles. It went by truck. The driver estimated it would take him 2 1/2 days. Come on BNSF/UP. You go there. If your intermodal marketing departments can’t get loads such as this on your rails you need to light a fire under 'em.
And just look at what the driver does for his money. He fuels, he does minor repairs, he inspects, he helps unload, and he cleans the equipment. I’m not suggesting rail workers do this. I’m suggesting they be aware that their competitive labor does this.
One trailer from MN to TX is not the scale to make BNSF do anything to capture the business. 100 trailers a day - every day is what it would take to entice BNSF to have a look a providing ‘competitive’ services. It takes large, consistant volumes to rail carriers to enter markets.
Single trailers, single loads, one time once loads. These do not make money for a railroad nor sense for a shipper on railroad. However, if the shipper went to a major over the road hauler like J.B.Hunt or Schnieders it might go via rail in the long distance. Years ago there were freight forwarders who might preform the same service with a single, one time once, box car but usually handled l.c.l. (less than carload lots). But today, a single trailer or container is not like a passenger on the railroad, can’t just show up and buy a ticket… Least not in this country!
While no one shipper is going to show up with 100 trailers per day from Minnesota to Houston there is freight in some volume moving on that lane. The railroads need to be able to discover/identify potential business, quantify it, evaluate it and get it. They currently do not have the ability to do that. (I blame the stupid government, and I’ll go in to detail on that if anyone wants me to.)
The railroads currently provide competitive intermodal service from St. Paul to Houston. Through Chicago. No new service is required. What they have to do is market the business. That includes identification, quantification, evaluation, pricing and selling. They (maybe with the exception of the NS) don’t currently have marketing people who can do that. (Such bright young folks are a standard issue of business schools. The railroads just don’t hire enough of 'em.)
Do you think this is a one time move? Do you think these are the only ceiling tiles the distributor will order? Adding this freight to existing rail service would throw money to the bottom line.
Marketing is the very weak link in the otherwise very good North American freight rail network. My post was meant to point that out. And I’ll stand by that.
As for forwarders, the government absolutely hated them and basically caused their unfortunate demise.
I would opine that this market would be best handled by third-party expiditers who would act as the go-between tweenst the trucking industry and the railroad.
If you want your trailer to go by rail, you contact the expiditer, who will arrange for space with the railroad. Drop your load at the requisite spot and somebody picks it up at the other end and delivers it.
As long as the railroad is delivering consistent service, the expiditer can advertise as such and make the necessary arrangements, all for a cut of the action.
I’d like to point out that the business cited would not require any new service or equipment distribution system. It could move through existing intermodal terminals and on existing intermodal trains.
Yes, new, added business would require more flatcars. But they’d be moving on existing lanes between existing terminals.
I just wish someone had used RoadRailers as suggested above. Instead they were used in more or less standard intermodal systems. (without the flatcars). Using them as suggested might have actually worked.
And with that I will sign off to begin my Thanksgiving holiday. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
As an employee of a company that receives goods on trucks and on trains, I’d have to doubt whether this would work for the buyer.
Plan A calls for Joe Trucker to pick up my load at the manufacturer’s door, drive for 2-1/2 days, and deliver it to my door. Plan B has Trucker #1 haul it from the manufacturer’s door to a rail site, where it will be loaded on a rail car. Railroad #1 hauls it half way, and switches the car to Railroad #2. Railroad #2 delivers the car to a rail facility and unloads it. Trucker #2 picks up the load, and delivers it to my door.
In Plan A, Joe Trucker is responsible for getting me the goods in as good of shape as when they left the manufacturer. Joe Trucker also has a financial stake in getting me my load as soon as possible. The quicker he gets unloaded, the quicker he is down the road.
In Plan B, we have 2 truckers and 2 railroads involved, plus the maybe a couple of 3rd party contractors who loaded and unloaded the semi trailer off the van.
Plan A has one party involved in the shipment who has responsibility for damage, and has a financial incentive to get me my load fast.
Plan B has 4 to 6 parties involved, maybe more, if there is another entity involved in lining up all the players, If my goods are damaged, I’ll bet real money that everyone involved will blame any and all of the others, and no one will want to pay for the damages. Instead of getting my load promptly, I’ll get it when it works out for all parties involved- maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week.
The unpredictability of shipping something like this by truck/ train/ train/ truck would have to have a very real cost savings for most end users to cons
Murphy has created an example of the varying obstacles and circumstances which, I am sure, the major RRs have long ago examined and made their decisions upon.
Marketing “experts” at this site are welcome to market their expertise to any or all of the RRs. Good luck!
I work at an Intemodal Marketing Company & we can move this on an EMHU on a Minneapolis-CP-Chicago-UP-Houston routing. It would cost me approx. $3292. It would be up to the account rep to determine how much margin to add to that. Expected transit would be a 5th morning delivery. JBHunt, Schneider, Swift & others could offer service on a BNSF routing.
Generally the RR’s don’t market i/m services directly to shippers. They depend on IMC’s to market EMP & UMAX container programs & in the case of BNSF, they rely on the truckload carriers to sell their services. They also have subsidiaries that provide door to door services to non-imc brokers… Streamline by Union Pacific, CSX Critical Capacity and Thoroughbred Direct by the NS.
At first glance I was inclined to agree with most that this would be business major carriers would ignore, but re-reading it, the light bulb went on…
Ceiling tiles are packaged in bundles, and then boxed in cardboard, so if there is a team track anywhere near the producer, then using a few boxcars would make this a win for the carrier and the producer.
Both BNSF and UP deliver to us, the PTRA in Houston, and we have team tracks, so how hard would it be for a local delivery company or stevedore to load the boxcar in MN, BNSF or UP picks it up, switches it into the daily outbound for Houston, it gets here, ends up at BNSF’s New South Yard or UP’s Englewood, both of which do a twice daily (sometimes more depending) transfer run to the PTRA, we can switch it out and have it in the team track next day….said track is about an hour drive from Pearland.
No special equipment needed and no special facilities beyond a team track, boxcars are plentiful, no special switching or handling by the carrier is needed, it’s a box for the team track, it can be humped or flat switched, road access to the team track here is great.
1200 miles in 2 and a half days certainly isn’t breaking any records…should be a day and a half. Railroads aren’t interested in low volume occasional moves, and that’s what most shippers put out. The average shipper is 10 million in annual sales or less. Truckers go after that freight, hence the clogged interstates and secondary routes. Team tracks are nice; however, in essence the receiver is asked to pick up his/her own freight at the railhead. It is much easier to call a load broker who will arrange for door to door service via a hungry small truckload carrier.
There was a day when railroads were in the low volume occasional business. I can remember when my father took me down to to the Appanaug RI station of the New Haven Railroad. We picked up a crate of oranges friends in Florida sent us as a Christmas present. Those days, however, are long gone. As Ulrich and others have pointed out, today’s freight railroads are serious business. The children’s story about the train hauling a load of toys over the mountain so the boys and girls could have presents under their Christmas tree is a charming story. But it has nothing to do with freight railroads.
I’m of the opinion that it isn’t that the railroads don’t want this business, it’s that they aren’t going to go out and try to get it. The UP had an ad campaign a while back about wherever you find business, you’ll find the UP. They had a screen saver silent version that went through a bunch of scenes like a construction site, beverage bottling plant, auto plant, etc on company computers. In each scene was a UP shield, looking like a machined part with no lettering, somewhere in the back ground. Most of the lines of business depicted would consist mostly of low volume type freight.
While I’m sure they would accept low volume intermodal shipments, their actual solicitation ends with a few advertisements and their website. They aren’t going to send people around to small customers like that to line up only a few loads, only to those that can line up large amounts. If a small customer wants to use intermodal, they have to go to the railroad. The railroad isn’t going to go to them.
Today’s marketing schemes look for high volume and long distance with least amount of handling. Thus if you drove your tractor trailer to a railroad and said you want a ride, they will turn you away. If however, you make arrangements to have a single trailer every day or every week maybe, they may talk to you and try to work something out depending on distance and convenience to them. A local shortline might be more amicable to a contract than a Class One for sure. Fed Ex Freight and UPS Freight along with a few others,have taken over the Railway Express and L.C.L. shipping.
CP is pretty hemmed in at Shoreham Intermodal in Minneapolis, they try to maximize Minneapolis to Western Canada or Montreal with the space that they have.
It appears that in many cases such service would be available in one form or another. Actual loading and unloading points would be the most critical factor - and whether those points were close enough to a given shipper and receiver to be feasible.
If XYZ Expiditers handled the arrangements, then a trailer delivered at X for delivery to Y should not be any different for a one-off movement or someone who ships multiple units on a daily basis.
In the end, I would opine that it all comes down to whether the costs and transit times are acceptable to all involved. All the marketing in the world won’t attract customers to the railroad if it’s cheaper overall to ship by truck.
or in some cases, if it’s faster by truck- because everybody wants it yesterday. Or, the service is more reliable- I see my stuff 2-1/2 days after it leaves the plant, not 6 to 10 days, depending on a lot of outside factors. Or the risk of having to fight half a dozen parties over who pays for damaged goods adds to much risk to the prospect of saving some money on freight costs…
Can’t say either. Cheap is in they wallet of the buyer. If time is of the essence, or the safe handling of the shipment is important, if the size of the shipment dictates, or the route via highway vs. rail is better and less restrictive…there is no one reason to chose one mode over the other in any given circumstance, no blanket statement can be made.