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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by MP173 That is good news. It must mean that shippers are lined up for service. If this is a unit train, then how frequently is it moving? Daily, 1x a week? Also, 124 hours does not exactly set speed records. That computes out to a little over 23mph, which is average speed for freight trains. Wouldnt you expect a little better performance than that? Perhaps that is all that is needed by shippers. It will be interesting to watch how this performs and if it can create a new trend. ed [/quote] If it is one dedicated car set, and a round trip will be about 10 days ("124 hour transit time" = 5 days x 2), then that means it shows up at Wallula every ten days assuming everything goes right. You're right, that is slow considering we're talking about perishables. I guess the farmers will schedule their fruit & veggie picking once every ten days as well. If only Mother Nature would oblige and ripen the produce to the optimum level of ripeness prior to picking and shipping, then it's all good. Also, Wallula isn't exactly situated in the heart of the fruit and veggie producing areas of Washington State, so that means commercial trucks will likely be the means to take the produce from farm to new loading center, which will add at least a day or two to the overall transit time. Too bad the railroads can't utilize individual carloads from points in the Yakima Valley and rotate them into the consist when it manages to roll into the Wallula track, if for no other reason than to keep from having to move individual pallets from the trucks to the new warehouse to the new unit trains cars. I wonder how this service will compare with the use of bi-modal technology like BNSF's Ice Cold Express? Bi-modal technology would allow them to bypass the need for the distribution center, instead taking in truck shipments from existing outlying warehouses and forming them into consists. BTW, we knew about this last week. The Port of Walla Walla has been working to get them to open this facility at their Wallula site, and they put out a few press releases on the job creation aspect of the project. I asked the commissioners if this facility would be accessable by both UP and BNSF (since both lines have a presence in Wallula) but never heard back from them, so I suspect BNSF is not welcome at this new facility, and also that RailPax is an adjunct of UP in some form. Thus another captive shipper is born! At least a new captive shipper is better than no new shipper at all!
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