If I want to send a 2000 pound 4’x4’x4’ pallet of stone from Pittsburgh, PA to San Jose, CA, what is the process for doing that by train? Would I be contacting a railroad directly? I assume not because I am an end user and do not have recurring shipments in sufficient quantity. Is there a logistics firm or broker who could take the order and arrange the details of dropoff and pickup points?
In terms of cost, bulk tariff used to be about two cents per ton mile. What is the going full-price tariff rate? Unlikely I am going to do better given my single pallet order?
What I am trying to compare here is my price for delivered freight going by truck versus having my shipper drop the pallet off at the freight forwarder’s yard, then having a firm I pick get the stone from the delivery point near San Jose.
It looks like the truck price - picking up at origin and driving all the way to the final end use point - is being quoted at around $700 to $900. Unless I can get delivery by train significantly cheaper than that it will not make sense to do it. At the old tariff rate, it would be about $40 for the one pallet, and then I would have additional costs for trucks at either end.
Not sure what tarrif you looked at, but $40 for a shipment won’t even get a switch crew on the local to stop to pick up your load. Even a shortline, with their reputation for better service, won’t even fire up their locomotive for that. Nor will it cover the car hire costs, as I assume you do not have your own railcar to ship your 1 pallet load.
Put it on the truck and call it a day. You’ll spend more of your time (yes, it is worth something even if you’re retired) than you’ll ever save trying ship it by rail. Railroads got out of the LCL (less than carload and that is what your shipment is) business several decades ago.
I was using 2 cents per ton mile as the tariff rate for bulk goods. That’s an older reference I have from 2010 and I am sure rates are higher now.
I fully expected that $40 would not be a final rate, and there would be all kinds of one off charges. I was proposing to have shipper drop off the pallet and separately to explore picking it up from wherever it lands.
I agree truck is easier, but I am paying $800 to ship $300 of product. That’s preventing me from buying the product. I’m simply trying to find if train shipment gives me any economic savings at all.
What the world needs is a train consolidator that will minimize transit cost, but at the expense of having no guaranteed delivery time. Imagine that my seller could bring the pallet to a consolidator’s warehouse, where it would sit until such time as the consolidator has enough shipments to fill a train carload. It might take three months to receive my shipment, but the ultimate cost would likely be far less than a truck service.
Short of loading that pallety of stone in your own pick-up and taking the wife on a vacation to California…You might go down to the ‘market’ in Pittsburg, look for a meat or produce driver trying to score a load back to California. You might get a ‘bargain price’ on that partial (LTL), BUT You have to remember, that a fuel fill up of that truck is going to be in the $400/$500 range. OR just tell those people to go to a neighborhood stone yard and buy it there! [:-^]
4’ x 4’ x 4’ pallet of stone = 64 cu. ft., going to weigh at least around 6,400 lbs. unless there’s an awful lot of air between the stones - maybe as much as 5 tons if closer to a solid block.
Agreed- one ton, (2,000lbs) is way too light. Maybe it’s pumice! The only rock that floats! 12 cubic feet per ton here in the Shield so your 4x4x4 comes out over 10,000ibs. It would be close to Paul_D_North_Jr calculates in many other parts of North America.
Gives me a chance to relate a true tale in my mining career. We were developing a drawpoint area for a new stope and ran into a massive zone of bull quartz, the size of a ballroom. Pure milky white. Scooptram bucket after bucket of clean pure milky white quartz…never in all my years did I see anything like it. I was the Chief Geologist and by happenstance was acting Mine Manager for a 3 month period. Thinking this was a shame to treat this as waste I ordered it hoisted to surface and stockpiled. We had quite a pile of it by the time we were through the zone. I then ordered it moved out along the highway near the entrance to the Mine along that highway and had a nice sign made up saying it was free for the taking. That pile disappeared over the length of the summer and I know ended up in gardens and driveways all over the area and elsewhere. The folks loved it.
Head office in Toronto never knew, best they do not.
What the heck eh? Never get to tell about this event.
You know what, though? You did a great public service by sharing what was otherwise waste with the locals. They were probably very grateful and thought better of the company afterwards.
1.Talk to the seller, if they are in the wholesale business they may have the contacts to arrange the shipment.
CH Robinson, broker they can arrange this as an LTL add on to another shipment.
Any of several LTL carriers, Yellow/Roadway, FedEx Freight, UPS, Estes, to name a few.
Amtrak does a station to station express(I forget the name). Amtrak may have a weight limit per pallet though. Amtrak does have info on their web site. The disadvantage is you will have to arrange pickup and delivery.
Air cargo. This may sound expensive, and I’m unsure what the current rate structure is now. American Airlines used to have a fairly extensive cargo network. As did other airlines. This size of cargo though needs to be shipped as a container shipment(LD -3 or LD -2). Delta used to offer some good weekend rates(dropped after 1201am Friday morning) .
Personally I would avoid UShip after watching the reality show. I’ve seen worse in cargo handling from “Professionals”.
Currently the world of transportation is in some ways the wild west. The advantage of your shipment is low value, it is a dense cargo, and does not necessarily need protection from the elements. It is a good add on for a flatbed carrier. The disadvantage is you are not a business(from the sound of it). YOU WILL NEED A WAY TO UNLOAD THE CARGO. Most carriers want to basically deliver and go. 30 minutes for a one pallet shipment is considered a normal unload.
There are also several expeditors and consolidators.
This comes from 16 years driving OTR trucks and 6 years working for an air courier company doing air cargo.
Do it yourself or pay someome to drive a truck one way. Penske has very good rates on trucks to California. As an example one way from Calif to PA could be $3000.00 but the same truck to California $1500.00 plus fuel insurance, food, hotels and return airfare.
What will happen here is that if you use a LTL carrier like UPS Freight or Old Dominion is that the LTL carrier might use rail at their discreation for that long of of a distance from PGH-San Jose and your shipment will be one of many pallets on a container or trailer on flat car.
Does a single pallet even qualify for “bulk” pricing?
The answer to your question is “no, you will not be able to get rail to do it significantly cheaper”…if even at all.
Try Amazon.com…they probably have just what you’re looking for already sitting in a warehouse close to your destination. Join Amazon Prime first, and you might qualify for free 2-day delivery [(-D]
If you have 20K tons a week to ship in unit train service Pittsburgh to the West Coast and feature you will be shipping 2M tons a year for say a 5 year period, you may be able to get a Class 1 railroad to talk to you. Anything less really isn’t worth their time an effort to look into what would be the cost factor necessary to quote you a rate that you will contract for. You will have to ship a minimum tonnage over a specified period of time or you will become liable for penalty payments.
As many have said, railroads departed the LCL business many many years ago.&n
Since you are in Pittsburgh, you might want to contact a barge company, and get a “break-bulk” quote to ship down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, Then have it stevedored over to a cargo ship for passage through the canal and up the west coast…,
or you could break it down yourself into eight 250 lb packages and then send it by Greyhound…that might end up being your cheapest option.
