The train you least expected to see

Thanks to Eric Powell for the image you see above. Who would have imagined that the Indiana Rail Road, a regional outfit to this point known primarily for its profitable coal traffic, would be running scheduled intermodal trains into and out of Indianapolis? But it came to pass this month, initially on a triweekly basis. And I can assure you that there is no intermodal service quite like what INRD’s Tom Hoback arranged with partner Canadian National Railway.

The train you see about to leave the Senate Avenue terminal in Indianapolis on July 23 was years getting started. Hoback’s idea keyed on the fact that businesses in Indianapolis, with a metro area population of 1.8 million, had no direct intermodal connection to the factories of China, Japan, and Korea. CSX, which happens to be 85 percent owner of the Indiana Rail Road, maintains a small intermodal ramp at Avon Yard in the state capital geared toward traffic to and from the East Coast, as did Conrail before it.

Indianapolis businesses had to deramp containers from Asia in Chicago and pay to have them driven the 180 miles to Indianapolis. Then they had to pay to get the containers and chasses returned, usually empty, to Chicago. The process became expensive, time consuming, and endlessly bothersome. Indiana Rail Road’s goal was to save those customers money, time, and bother.

Looking for a partner, Hoback caught the interest of Canadian National. CN is intent upon capitalizing on its exclusive port in Prince Rupert, B.C., which happens to be the closest North American landing from Shanghai. CN also connects with INRD in Newton, Ill., via a 21-mile branch from Effingham, on the Chicago-New Orleans route.

CN was skeptical, says Hoback, so INRD’s sales staff canvassed every Indy-area company that could conceivably benefit from direct intermodal service to or from Asia and came up with scores of interested shippers. Interestingly, INRD uncovered almost as much potential traffic to Asia from central Indiana as from Asia.

Then CN and the Indiana had to agree on a schedule. The containers would travel between Prince Rupert and Chicago (and some between Vancouver and Chicago) on CN’s existing trains. To handle the traffic to and from Indianapolis, CN established a new pair of trains between Glenn Yard in Chicago and Memphis. Going south, the first stop, after pausing in Harvey, Ill., to get the Indy containers, is Effingham. An existing train based in Effingham will bring them to Newton, where the INRD will take over for the 153-mile lap to Senate Avenue in Indy. The process will work in reverse going back to Prince Rupert and Vancouver. I use the verb “will” because the first eastbound train won’t reach Indianapolis until early next week.

That first westbound train, by the way, had 21 loaded containers destined for Maersk at Prince Rupert. The Indiana had lined up Asia-bound loads of food products, animal feed, soya, and veneer logs and hardwoods. Hoback expects to find loads for a significantly greater portion of the westbound containers than the western U.S. railroads do.

Door to door, the service should cut five to seven days from transit time, says Hoback, versus going via California ports. Contracts have been signed with four shipping lines, and Hoback is hopeful that two more ship companies will follow. Then is comes down to boring the ultimate customers — the Indiana businesses that contract with the shipping lines — to death with consistently reliable arrivals. I know the Indiana Rail Road well enough to predict it will do just that.

The significance of all this is that intermodal shipping has been the plaything of the big railroads. The manta has been that you can’t make money on short hauls, and Chicago to Indianapolis is indeed a short haul. But Hoback figured out how to make his segment of the trip an extension of an intercontinental movement and priced INRD’s part of the service to make it worth the railroad’s while. Good for Canadian National and the Indiana Rail Road. Now where else could this be done? — Fred W. Frailey