Union Pacific is very irritant as of late.. The largest Class1 in the Nation. They should be leading the pack! If they truly wanted the business. Then contract marketing out to a 3PL, or allow: G&W, Omnitrax, Watco... to handle such transactions. That's what I would do. Matter of fact have a TM (Traffic Mgr) from each of those companies setup shop right in dispatch whilst utilizing their regional offices to solicit traffic. You can even get UPS in on it.. I see though why UP doesn't bother.. A record operating ratio is more important than record profits.. Smh..
greyhounds You cannot habituate a farm animal to transport. It stresses them. (dogs are different, they love a ride) A steer will loose 100 pounds in the first 24 hours of transport. If someone has just spent a lot of time, money and effort to put weight on the steer this will drive that person nuts.
You cannot habituate a farm animal to transport. It stresses them. (dogs are different, they love a ride) A steer will loose 100 pounds in the first 24 hours of transport. If someone has just spent a lot of time, money and effort to put weight on the steer this will drive that person nuts.
Greyhounds is absolutely correct about transporting livestock being very stressful for them. My grandmother had cows before I was born and until she passed away, when some passed to my father, who had cows until he passed away long after I left home. My uncle had cows the entire time I was growing up and until after I was gone. None of them except one (more on that in a moment) enjoyed being hauled around, and I've seen one or two which absolutely lost their minds when put in a stock trailer. Unless you've been present when cows are moved, it is hard to believe how much manure a group of cows can put into a formerly clean cow trailer during a 30-minute ride, from the stress of being moved.
My uncle had a Charolais bull that did enjoy being moved, but he had a good reason. My father had a stock trailer, and my uncle had the bull. They struck a deal for my father to use the bull to breed his 10 or 12 cows, and for my uncle to use the stock trailer when he needed it. That bull was mean and stubborn, and loading him to move him to a different group of cows was no fun at all the first few times. However, that stinker figured out that being moved meant he was about to be put together with a fresh group of willing cows, and after that we didn't even need a loading chute to get him in the trailer. We could just tow the trailer out into the pasture, open the gates, and get out of the way; he would walk up to the trailer and get in, without being enticed with treats or forced to get in. We had the last laugh, though - the last time we moved him, we took the trailer out into the pasture, the bull walked right in, and instead of taking him to a new batch of cows my uncle hauled his ornery butt to the market and sold him. Fun times.
The logistics services provider on Jan. 28 bought four property parcels totaling 131.85 acres for a combined sum of $1,389,302, city and Linn County property records show.
The land all falls along the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway — or CRANDIC — which made it a “unique and appealing” purchase for future rail-related uses, said Jeff Woods, director of business development and marketing for Alliant Energy Transportation
https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/alliant-picks-up-1-4-million-in-vacant-cedar-rapids-land-along-crandic-railway-20200211
If the Union Pacific does not want business in Cedar Rapids maybe the CRANDIC does. Would the service to the west coast be any better routing it via the Iowa Interstate to BNSF?
zugmann greyhounds And it needs to be an executive level boot. How can you be a precisely scheduled railroad operating with as few locomotives and people as possible if you have marketing people out there trying to drum up more business?
greyhounds And it needs to be an executive level boot.
How can you be a precisely scheduled railroad operating with as few locomotives and people as possible if you have marketing people out there trying to drum up more business?
There's people out there trying to drum up buisness? It seems more like someone (and the number's probably dwindling) to answer the phone or check e-mail/website contacts. Our employee website has a place to tell them of business opprotunities the field work force sees so they can follow up.
That is, if it's "appropriate business" that they haven't convinced themselves that's not worth their time.
We make announcements that we're all in on an intermodal facility on a short line (Shell Rock IA - Iowa Northern) but won't load containers for the cereal companies at Beverly IA. It was said local management was working with those companies, but Marketing told them we weren't going to do it and to mind their (local mgmt) own business. It wouldn't be the first time they've turned up their nose at business that only nets them 5 or 6 million dollars.
Jeff
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Victrola1If the Union Pacific does not want business in Cedar Rapids maybe the CRANDIC does. Would the service to the west coast be any better routing it via the Iowa Interstate to BNSF?
IMHO, this is a misdiagnosis of the problem. It isn't that the UP doesn't "Want" the business, it's that they don't grasp the opportunity. They haven't made an informed, reasoned, analyzed decision to forgo the traffic. They just don't have the ability to evaluate it. This may sound farfetched, but I believe it to be the reality.
They're not going to spend a lot of money developing the needed intermodal terminals on "Hey, why don't we." The marketing folks have to be able to identify, quantify, and come up with a plan that will add money to the bottom line. They currently cannot do this. They don't know how. Until developing that ability becomes a corporate priority that railroad is going to wander in the woods. And run from any opportunity that they cannot understand.
There is going to be internal pushback. There should be such internal pushback. Every plan is not a good plan and all such plans must be required to "Stand Trial" before money is spent. At the same time there has to be an acceptance of risks. If you never fail you're not trying hard enough.
But I don't see many of today's marketing people as having an understanding of what a railroad can/cannot do. They fold at the first opposition.
From my own personal experience with the UP.... I was working with a 3rd party group to get that westbound Iowa/Nebraska meat on the railroad. There is a large volume of meat going to the west. Both for domestic consumption and export to Asia. I wasn't in the meeting but I was told the UP marketing guy said he wanted to get to a unit train. Well, this is silly. It's not one origin to one destination. It's going all over. From Seattle to San Diego. A unit train will not work. Just put it on existing expedited trains and save the expense of running an additional unit train. But all the guy knew was "Get unit trains." So he tried to do that. They need to do better. (RailEx was a classic blunder. They tried to shove perishables in to a once or twice a week unit train. Not good.)
They have made some progress. They're now putting export meat on existing trains. And Lance Fritz has condemed "Boutique" unit trains. But they've got a ways to go.
Yes there's all kinds of protein that moves to eastern and western markets in the USA on trucks. However what everyone who is wanting the railroad to get into this market is forgetting is what is the backhaul going to be for 6 months of the year in some areas of the nation out west when the produce is being grown in Arizona and imported from around Nogales and Yuma areas. Are they willing to eat a 500 mile deadhead to reposition the equipment to get it into place if needed. Plus a lot of these protein loads are multiple drops going across the nation. My husband would pickup a get loaded out of 3 different plants with a mix of beef and pork then have 4 drops that started off in Wendover Nevada then on to Reno then 1 in Sacramento with a finish in San Francisco about one a month at one place he drove for. The driver's called it the Western meatpacking local. Then depending on if it was Salinas season for produce or winter get their reload assignment. In the winter they would be sent to Oregon to get bare root roses to bring back to the midwest. The export stuff the railroad can have as much of that as they freaking want. Why the less times it's handled before it's on that export container out of the nation the better less chance for damage.
Shadow the Cats owner Yes there's all kinds of protein that moves to eastern and western markets in the USA on trucks. However what everyone who is wanting the railroad to get into this market is forgetting is what is the backhaul going to be for 6 months of the year in some areas of the nation out west when the produce is being grown in Arizona and imported from around Nogales and Yuma areas. Are they willing to eat a 500 mile deadhead to reposition the equipment to get it into place if needed. Plus a lot of these protein loads are multiple drops going across the nation. My husband would pickup a get loaded out of 3 different plants with a mix of beef and pork then have 4 drops that started off in Wendover Nevada then on to Reno then 1 in Sacramento with a finish in San Francisco about one a month at one place he drove for. The driver's called it the Western meatpacking local. Then depending on if it was Salinas season for produce or winter get their reload assignment. In the winter they would be sent to Oregon to get bare root roses to bring back to the midwest. The export stuff the railroad can have as much of that as they freaking want. Why the less times it's handled before it's on that export container out of the nation the better less chance for damage.
This is where a Ro-Ro TOFC/COFC comes into play.. Backhaul you say? How's California's hay production to date? Yuma also host a major portion of Arizona's Cattle production. If you really want to get creative stuff import goods into reefer containers for backhaul. UPS did this for years with it's Martrac fleet.. Parcels west, perishables east
Thank you for ceding the export loads. Very nice of you to do that.
The UP does need an intermodal terminal at, or near, Yuma. The harvest does shift to that area during the colder months. There is year round traffic to handle, although August and September are really low volume. (USDA data).
As to the deadhead miles (empty, non revenue), they're a fact of life for any transportation company. It would be a rare freight transportation operation that had two way loading perfectly in balance between two points. You try to minimize deadhead miles, but they cannot be eliminated. Some of the trucks going in to Yuma may have a revenue load. But the volume going in is much less that the volume going out. So trucks have to deadhead in. As the UP would have to do.
What this gets us to is the cost. The marginal cost of moving the empty equipment in by rail is significantly lower than the marginal cost of driving an empty truck to Yuma. Yuma is on the way from LA to Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, etc. via the UP. Just put the containers that moved the meat to southern California (Lots 'O people.) on an eastbound through Yuma. Set 'em out at Yuma. Get 'em loaded and put them on an existing shedule going east. The marginal cost to the railroad will be lower than anything the truckers could compete with. Of course you have to then get the containers back to the packing house. But the truckers have to get back to the packing house too. Again, the marginal cost advantage of rail will be a railroad advantage.
As to northern California, I don't know how many loads of bare root roses move out of Oregon. But there's no reason they can't move on a train. The UP could move empties out of northern California to apple loads in Washington or potatoes from Idaho. Again, this can be done with low marginal cost when existing train service is used.
The loads with multiple deliveries will have to be worked out one at time.
At one time BNSF (and even as far back as ATSF) had ramps in Bakersfield, Fresno, Empire (east of Modest on the M&ET), North Bay (San Pablo – UPS exclusively) and Richmond. They shut down Bakersfield before the BN merger, and ultimately Richmond and Fresno (I believe both of those right around the opening of their own new ramp at Mariposa just east of Stockton). Although there are many food producing facilities and DCs throughout the Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley, ATSF/BNSF found it made sense to get all of that focused at one ramp. That allowed them to build solid trains, or trains with limited blocks, to dispatch out to DFW, Memphis, Atlanta, KC and Chicago. The drayage took care of the seasonal issues, and the challenge of many smaller blocks. BNSF gets a lot of cold trailers, and some cold containers, out of Mariposa.
San Bernardino in the LA Basin also handles many cold trailers and containers; Hobart less so. Recently they have re-opened the ramp at Barstow, with a goal to get more cold boxes from the southern San Joaquin Valley (EB) plus the DCs to serving Las Vegas and the Victorville market (which is not all that large: most of Vegas’s supplies come out of the LA Basin RDCs and NDCs). It will take the pressure off of San Bernardino as well as capture more of the highway 58 cold traffic. I’m not sure on the success of this yet. But overall BNSF focuses on fewer ramps, longer drays, and generally longer hauls. That seems to make the most sense to them. Couple that with a number of lanes with multiple schedules and relatively good service, and so far it seems successful.
The other consideration is that, with the seasonality of markets (ie: Salinas Valley – Yuma for lettuce), a lot of that type of business seems to go by owner-operator truckers rather than the big boys like Prime, Stevens, FFE, etc. And it seems to also work for the more nimble smaller operators that Shadow the Cats owner represents, where service is job one. Those operators seem to be flexible enough to move around. Unfortunately, it seems they don’t have the volumes that the railroads want to deal with: the railroads are more focused on fewer larger truckers. Will more stringent trucking regulations and spiraling insurance costs push more traffic to the larger trucking companies? Will be interesting to see.
Bruce D GillingsUnfortunately, it seems they don’t have the volumes that the railroads want to deal with: the railroads are more focused on fewer larger truckers.
I am curious: Does a trucker have to have their own contract with a RR to move their trailers/ boxes on a train? For example - let's say a couple of smaller truck firms, one near Yuma and one near Chicago agreed the deliver each other's refrigerated trailers, with transport between cities provided by rail. Would it be easy or hard for those two firms to do this? Can a trucker drive up to an intermodal ramp and ask that trailer be taken to a particular city, sort of like when one goes to a UPS store to have their package shipped to someone? I know accounts need to be setup and all that, it is more of a question as to how available intermodal services are to customers who might only want to use it on an occasional basis.
adkrr64 Bruce D Gillings Unfortunately, it seems they don’t have the volumes that the railroads want to deal with: the railroads are more focused on fewer larger truckers. I am curious: Does a trucker have to have their own contract with a RR to move their trailers/ boxes on a train? For example - let's say a couple of smaller truck firms, one near Yuma and one near Chicago agreed the deliver each other's refrigerated trailers, with transport between cities provided by rail. Would it be easy or hard for those two firms to do this? Can a trucker drive up to an intermodal ramp and ask that trailer be taken to a particular city, sort of like when one goes to a UPS store to have their package shipped to someone? I know accounts need to be setup and all that, it is more of a question as to how available intermodal services are to customers who might only want to use it on an occasional basis.
Bruce D Gillings Unfortunately, it seems they don’t have the volumes that the railroads want to deal with: the railroads are more focused on fewer larger truckers.
Not very available. The railroads just are not set up to deal with smaller, occasional customers. That's not a failing. Many large companies are not set up to deal directly with such customers. We don't buy our cars/trucks directly from Ford and we don't buy our ketchup directly from Hunts.
Products and services are delivered through channels of distribution that, absent government interference, will configure themselves in the most efficient manner.
Smaller shippers can go through intermodal marketing companies that aggregate the volumes into amounts a large railroad can readily deal with. (It was taught to me as "Descrepancy of Size.") Just like Ford sells through dealers.
But first, UP needs to put an intermodal terminal at Yuma.
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