Pretty good article on the above, date-lined May 4, 2011:
Move could dramatically change the dynamics of shipping in the United States.
By Mark B. Solomon
http://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/2010504ups_places_multiyear_for_containers/
Do you think it will change anything ? And if so - then what, and how ?
i think the types of trains are going to change now. for example the z-lacwsp9 (los angeles to willow springs,ill) train that departs los angeles every morning is almost 100% of the time all spine cars with UPS trailers on them. With this news you will probably see many more double stack trains and fewer actual trailers on spine cars. But it makes sense because UPS can now ship 2 times as much freight on the same lengths of train, I’m surprised that they haven’t done this sooner. Just my opinion though.
Here’s something I’ve always wondered - Take the UPS willow springs - LA train - willow springs is right on rail and I believe the main UPS facility in LA is as well. What if UPS used excess height boxcars and got rail service direct to their dock instead of intermodal service? Sure, it may not be a long dray but putting boxes straight into boxcars would be faster. But I’m really not qualified to evaluate the merits (or pitfalls) of this idea, I’m just throwing it out there so someone with more knowledge could comment.
The UPS facility at Willow Springs (Hodgkins, really) is more than a giant intermodal facility. A good amount of sorting is already done at that facility and the sorting areas are set up for trailers and containers. It would take a major rebuilding to accomodate boxcars.
This changes almost nothing. You can mix stacks with conventional - its done every day in a big way all over the place. The RRs have been trying to get UPS to use containers for 15 years, at least. At first, they tried some 28’ containers. UPS loves their pups! You could put 4 of them in a 56’ well car. This failed because the containers and railcars were oddballs.
I suspect UPS will try to keep these container moving in their high volume lanes radiating out of CACHE in Chicago, perhaps.
I think the change is more evolutionary than revolutionary.
First, remember that UPS is now more than a package service. We don’t know how UPS is going to use the containers. Will they be used for package service, LTL service, or both.
Second, the development of higher speed service for double staack containers has been going on for a while. CR England’s reefer containers don’t get on a slow train to Chicago. The most this UPS purchase will do is accelerate the development.
It was always kind of an artifical market segmentation. It may have made sense at one point. Before domestic containerization grew to become the dominant intermodal system. The international containers being double stacked had taken a long boat ride and trading 1 or 2 extra days in domestic transit for a lower charge made sense.
Now, with so many domestic loads moving DS, it makes economic/business sense to provide the level of service some of the customers desire There are now enough such customers to justify offering the service.
As to putting UPS in boxcars–
Remember that it may be a Chicago-LA train but the packages have many diverse origins and destinations. UPS achieves great economy when it can avoid a sort. That train will have trailers loaded directly for places such as San Diego, for example. UPS won’t want to unload a boxcar in LA and transfer the freight to a trailer for San Diego when they can load directly for San Diego at Chicago.
There are many other reasons for using intermodal instead of carload - but I’ve got to go to work now.
The plan all along has been to get the freight out of the boxcars and into containers. Going the other way would be like the electric utilities asking for individual carloads of coal so they could pay for all that switching. Not going to happen.