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Shipping Fruit
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<p>My apoligies for my rambling. </p><p> On shipping produce. I'm one of those truck drivers(OTR gang) who pulls a refridgerated(temperature controlled) trailer. </p><p> 1. A lot of produce these days gets moved in Truck Load quantities(ie 40,000lb lots/ 20 pallet) The patterns I see is that it moves very quickly & is absolutely not subject to delay unless someone really wants a lot of trouble. Cargo has to be temperature checked continously & must keep moving. </p><p> A lot of this can move 500 miles a day but there is a lot that has to move faster(ie team freight) .</p><p> There is a huge variety of not only refridgerated freight but also stuff that is temperature sensitive. (protect from freezing, protect from excessive heat, keep 0 deg f or below. maintain a temperture of xx to xx Deg F). </p><p>Railroads are getting a little better at this. Most railroads when they rebuld or but a new refridgerated railcar they will put a Thermo King SB III unit or a Carrier Ultra. Both of these units were developed primarily for truck trailer use. (If you look inside older railcars you will see the units mounted in the area for mech. equipment with the roof section over this are cut away. the new railcars simply have the units mounted on the end of the car.s</p><p> If the railroads were smart, they would get into this business. I would not accept traditional rail rates, but would insist on getting the rates that they would get if they were a trucking company(this also means providing trucking company service). </p><p> The other comment I would make is that railroads would have to have multiple departures daily to get the best chance at this business. One of the comments I heard inside my company when I asked about why the co. did not use rail any more, was that they had real problems getting R/R to hold a train when the grower was running late. This was in spite of the fact that they were sending 20 containers or more a day. </p><p> When they saw that they would not make the daily dept, well on the road it went. On those days when they did not have enought trucks to cover the loads & R/R was unavailable someone ended up paying for the missed loads.(and it was not the railroad).</p><p>Not sure what else I can say.</p><p>Rgds IGN</p>
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