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.
The days of LCL (less than carload) freight are long past. Unless you want to hire an entire car for your pallet load, you're out of luck for shipping by rail.
There are trucking firms that handle LTL (less than truckload).
Mapquest gave me 2,613 miles for the trip. Using the IRS mileage rate, it would cost you ~ $2,900 to pay someone just the mileage to drive from CA to PA and back with a suitable vehicle to pick it up.
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The railroad won't be interested in anything that small. They're just not structured to handle 2,000 pound shipments. If you do get a price it will be from the forwarder, not directly from the railroad.
It could go by rail anyway as LTL truckers do use rail intermodal.
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