does CN and CP run any UPS trains?
Since UPS is conventing its trailers to containers will UPS use chassis from the chassis pool or have there own?
In the 1990s I worked for UPS and at the time UPS used CP to transport trailers between Vancouver and Toronto. UPS was relatively new in Canada and so the volume of trailers was pretty small (one or two per day). Trailers to destinations in western Canada from Vancouver went via road.
In the intervening years I understand at some point CN won the contract. I assume they still have the contract but I am not sure.
The ones I saw several weeks ago were all D/Stacks
I did see also a smattering of UPS container moving TOFC
[:)]
No. I had once been a United Parcel Service Unloader and had learned BNSF is the only United Parcel Service carrier. And here in Illinois there is an Intermodal Terminal used to only handle only UPS and occasionaly J.B. Hunt.
(UPS Container: Stack/UPS Trailer: Flat.).
Occasionally UPS could also be found on Union Pacific. I have never seen UPS on CN, CP, CSX, KCS and I do not think UPS could be seen on another carrier other than BNSF and occasionally Union Pacific unless UPS should decide to use another carrier also.
I believe this assertion to be grievously in error.
http://www.fecrwy.com/news/florida-east-coast-railway-sets-new-service-record-ups
UPS uses all the big four US railroads (Plus the FEC) I don’t know about Canada, but it seems like CN on the Montreal, Toronto, Chicago route would be a natural if there’s enough international package business.
Yes. Lots of UPS on NS and CSX in the east.
I see the CN trains 148/149 trains (Toronto - Chicago) and do not recall seeing any UPS vans.
What about Chicago - Memphis/New Orleans?
Ed
Out here (SoCentral Ks.) I’ve seen what appear to be 53’ UPS Boxes (?) -Plain white boxes, w/ tiny UPS markings. And on most of the TOFC cars there are many UPS pups and 45’ drop frames.
What surprises me are the increasing numbers of FedEX trailers on those trains.
IC always had the UPS contract for Chicago to Memphis and New Orleans, and that didn’t change after CN took over. What did change was that a sales team led by a CN guy with “retail” intermodal experience in Canada went knocking on the doors of Louisiana shippers, and within a few months all those empty northbound trailers that the Alliances and Hubs of the world hadn’t been able to fill for years were suddenly, magically loaded. (UPS business is often notoriously imbalanced, which means you need to have a plan for the backhaul. IC had never been able to make that work before). Also, somewhere around 2000 or thereabouts (memory’s rusty here) CN launched a new faster Toronto-Vancouver train that captured UPS, FedEx, and other express ground shipments off the highway. That business was still growing when I left in 2003, though I can’t say what’s happened to it since, nor what equipment it moved/moves in. I don’t believe it was in “company” trailers as in the U.S. - I think they used containers provided by CN from the outset (possibly even with CN trucks/drivers doing the pickup and delivery to/from the UPS facilities), so it wouldn’t have been obvious to the trackside observer. Toronto-Montreal-Chicago is not a high priority service lane for CN intermodally, and they’ve never gone after highly service-sensitive transborder business there. The distances are too short and there are customs clearance issues on loads containing hundreds of LTL shipments. And actually, I doubt there’s much UPS-type volume to be had between Toronto and Chicago. The normal practice for that type of transborder LTL is to use the nearest practical border point - so most parcel-type traffic moving between Toronto and the U.S. runs through sorting centres in the Buffalo area.
Please don’t “Dis” me like that.
Now I was ICG, not IC, but we balanced New Orleans and we did it with retail door to door service. Amstar Sugar comes
You must have been gone awhile by the time I got involved. The IC marketing folks made it sound like it had been that way since time immemorial. I recall that they were, or had recently been, getting some northbound loads out of Mobile at really low rates, but for whatever reason it took so long to get the empties repositioned there that they were just about as well off to send them back north as soon as they were unloaded. Anyways, the lesson from our experience with the same problem at different times is that if you want something done right, do it yourself!
Should have added that you’re right, Toronto-Chicago is a big truckload market, just not for UPS-type freight. CN’s daily intermodal train on that lane mostly handles overseas containers moving through the ports of Montreal and Halifax, and doesn’t have a truck-competitive schedule. At least half of whatever domestic business shows up on it was, in my time at least, being crosstowned to or from UP or BNSF as part of a longer move. While I was at CN they took a crack at the Toronto - Chicago local market with a premium, door-to-door Roadrailer service, but they botched the execution badly, so I imagine it’ll be awhile before the corporate memory fades and someone tries again.