UP is currently in the process of completing a transload facility inside it's Global 4 (G4) Logistics Park in Joliet, IL. Completion is scheduled for Q4 21. The facility will create a backhaul of Midwestern Grains loaded into ISO containers for export to the West Coast. This is a great idea as trains can be filled out at point of origin instead of creating a work event down the road. Maybe UP is finally waking up, but time will tell..
News article here
Photo Credit UP
SD60MAC9500UP is currently in the process of completing a transload facility inside it's Global 4 (G4) Logistics Park in Joleit, IL. Completion is scheduled for Q4 21. The facility will create a backhaul of Midwestern Grains loaded into ISO containers for export to the West Coast. This is a great idea as trains can be filled out at point of origin instead of creating a work event down the road. Maybe UP is finally waking up, but time will tell.. News article here Photo Credit UP
Don't know that I follow their logic. Are storage silo's going to be constructed to facilitate the transloading? Is the farmer going to deal with the transloading facility or will they continue to deal with their 'local elevator' and then the elevator deals with the transload facility. Or is the idea to bring in a Unit Train from a local elevator and then transload the contents of the Unit Train into ocean boxes.
Article mentions 50K boxes a year or 136 per day. Is that 20 foot or 40 foot international boxes?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
"Regional producers and processors will be able to transport their product by truck to Global IV, where it will be transloaded into intermodal marine containers for shipment by rail to West Coast ports, then loaded onto ocean carriers and shipped to overseas markets."
charlie hebdo"Regional producers and processors will be able to transport their product by truck to Global IV, where it will be transloaded into intermodal marine containers for shipment by rail to West Coast ports, then loaded onto ocean carriers and shipped to overseas markets."
Which begs the question - why aren't Regional producers and processors able to load international containers on their own and deliver them to the intermodal terminal for furtherance.
BaltACD charlie hebdo "Regional producers and processors will be able to transport their product by truck to Global IV, where it will be transloaded into intermodal marine containers for shipment by rail to West Coast ports, then loaded onto ocean carriers and shipped to overseas markets." Which begs the question - why aren't Regional producers and processors able to load international containers on their own and deliver them to the intermodal terminal for furtherance.
charlie hebdo "Regional producers and processors will be able to transport their product by truck to Global IV, where it will be transloaded into intermodal marine containers for shipment by rail to West Coast ports, then loaded onto ocean carriers and shipped to overseas markets."
A 40' Container has a combined chassis and box tare weight in a range of 15K-15.3K lbs. A hopper trailer for hauling grain has a tare weight range of 7.5K-10K lbs. The farmer can haul more net grain to the terminal at a cheaper rate. Cutting the amount of trips as well.
Maersk, MSC or whoever owns the box. Gets higher utilization due to the box not straying away from the terminal and being held captive at a farmer/co-ops silo. This is a win-win for everyone, and I would not be surprised to see this replicated throughout the rest of the industry.
So it seems UP has made an annoucement some of us have been waiting for. UP will finally open a intermodal ramp at West Colton albeit a small one to begin with. If the traffic base grows I imagine UP will push classification to Roseville and convert West Colton into an IM ramp. Maybe UP is starting to wake up or somebody is prodding them to get into growing traffic... Either way these annoucements are great news first G4 transload. Now West Colton. Article here.
Back in December of 2020 UP started shipping iron ore for export to the Port of Long Beach again. The ore is being shipped in trains of about 150-160 cars for export to China. Loads orginate in Southern Utah not sure what mine though. I'm curirous as too how they are shipping iron ore in aluminum hoppers. I wonder if they had their interiors coated to prevent cross corrosion of the aluminum. Any insight into this would be appreciated.
FWIW, our aluminum sulphur cars aren't lined either (the steel ones were).
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
SD60MAC9500Back in December of 2020 UP started shipping iron ore for export to the Port of Long Beach again. The ore is being shipped in trains of about 150-160 cars for export to China. Loads orginate in Southern Utah not sure what mine though. I'm curirous as too how they are shipping iron ore in aluminum hoppers. I wonder if they had their interiors coated to prevent cross corrosion of the aluminum. Any insight into this would be appreciated.
Not sure that I have ever seen a more inefficient manner being used to load a bulk commodity into ocean going vessels.
Grain has already been moving in containers. I always thought it was some kind of specialty grain product, the train lists only have so much room for names of the loads. It doesn't seem the most efficient way to move a bulk commodity.
OTOH, smaller grain facilities that can't load unit trains or even has rail service might be able to use containers.
Jeff
jeffhergert Grain has already been moving in containers. I always thought it was some kind of specialty grain product, the train lists only have so much room for names of the loads. It doesn't seem the most efficient way to move a bulk commodity. OTOH, smaller grain facilities that can't load unit trains or even has rail service might be able to use containers. Jeff
Yes those are specialty grain products a fast growing market segment. Which is the target and smaller volume shippers as you noted, though also receivers of low volume. The nice thing about the G4 transload it kills two birds with one stone. The farmer can haul more net grain with his lighter tare hopper bottom. Companies like Maersk, MSC, APL, etc. get faster turn-around, and gets a backhaul. A win-win for everyone involved.
SD60MAC9500 Maybe UP is finally waking up, but time will tell..
Perhaps they were concerned that if they didn't find a revenue back-haul, someone was likely to suggest they start hauling hides?
BaltACDNot sure that I have ever seen a more inefficient manner being used to load a bulk commodity into ocean going vessels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhwvXIOkoBY
There must be some reason why that method of using dump trucks and large shallow dump is in use.
I don't think there's a major galvanic-corrosion issue between aluminum and iron ore. You may be thinking of thermite, which is chemical rather than electrochemical, and requires a considerable endotherm to get started unless there is a large surface area between aluminum and iron oxide...
BaltACD SD60MAC9500 Back in December of 2020 UP started shipping iron ore for export to the Port of Long Beach again. The ore is being shipped in trains of about 150-160 cars for export to China. Loads orginate in Southern Utah not sure what mine though. I'm curirous as too how they are shipping iron ore in aluminum hoppers. I wonder if they had their interiors coated to prevent cross corrosion of the aluminum. Any insight into this would be appreciated. Not sure that I have ever seen a more inefficient manner being used to load a bulk commodity into ocean going vessels.
SD60MAC9500 Back in December of 2020 UP started shipping iron ore for export to the Port of Long Beach again. The ore is being shipped in trains of about 150-160 cars for export to China. Loads orginate in Southern Utah not sure what mine though. I'm curirous as too how they are shipping iron ore in aluminum hoppers. I wonder if they had their interiors coated to prevent cross corrosion of the aluminum. Any insight into this would be appreciated.
The volume is not there for them to invest in ship loaders. Plus this contract is not long term.
SD60MAC9500 BaltACD SD60MAC9500 Back in December of 2020 UP started shipping iron ore for export to the Port of Long Beach again. The ore is being shipped in trains of about 150-160 cars for export to China. Loads orginate in Southern Utah not sure what mine though. I'm curirous as too how they are shipping iron ore in aluminum hoppers. I wonder if they had their interiors coated to prevent cross corrosion of the aluminum. Any insight into this would be appreciated. Not sure that I have ever seen a more inefficient manner being used to load a bulk commodity into ocean going vessels. The volume is not there for them to invest in ship loaders. Plus this contract is not long term.
Have been watching some farming videos - they are using augers to transload seed and fertilizer from storage bins to trucks and from trucks to the seeding equipment.
While I am certain that particular equipment is inadequate to handle something with the weight of iron ore - certainly - the best and brightest can devise and build a more efficient and high volume pieces of equipment than what this video showed for ship loading. The equipment being used to tranload from the rail cars to the storage piles are much more efficient.
How much tonnage is being loaded on the ships? How long are the ships in port to facilitate loading? Ships cost their owners money - waiting or sailing.
Back in the day of the Export Coal Boom of the early 1980's. CSX had more tonnage to load than the Curtis Bay Coal pier was able to handle with it's ship loader - routinely dumping between 50K & 60K tons a 24 hour day. During that period of time the Scow Loader only had sufficient business for one 8 hour shift per week. CSX contracted with a local outfit to provide scows and tow boats to load the scows at Curtis Bay and float them across the harbor to the former Western Maryland Import Ore Pier - where the Ore Pier equipment would dig coal out of the scows and transload it to a waiting coal hauler. This operation permitted the loading of two additional vessels per week above the number of vessels that Curtis Bay was handling on the ship loader.
SD60MAC9500Back in December of 2020 UP started shipping iron ore for export to the Port of Long Beach again. The ore is being shipped in trains of about 150-160 cars for export to China. Loads orginate in Southern Utah not sure what mine though...
It's coming from Iron Mountain, near Cedar, Utah. It's been an on again, off again project, so I can see why they have not built ore dedicated loading facilities yet.
https://utahrails.net/utahrails/iron-mountain-railroads.php
Several grain elevators in Northern Il have been shipping soybeans to Japan in 20 ft containers for years. Was a big uptick when Global 3 was up and running. They had been taking them to Chicago before it opened and took them to Chicago after it "closed"
BaltACD SD60MAC9500 UP is currently in the process of completing a transload facility inside it's Global 4 (G4) Logistics Park in Joleit, IL. Completion is scheduled for Q4 21. The facility will create a backhaul of Midwestern Grains loaded into ISO containers for export to the West Coast. This is a great idea as trains can be filled out at point of origin instead of creating a work event down the road. Maybe UP is finally waking up, but time will tell.. News article here Photo Credit UP Don't know that I follow their logic. Are storage silo's going to be constructed to facilitate the transloading? Is the farmer going to deal with the transloading facility or will they continue to deal with their 'local elevator' and then the elevator deals with the transload facility. Or is the idea to bring in a Unit Train from a local elevator and then transload the contents of the Unit Train into ocean boxes. Article mentions 50K boxes a year or 136 per day. Is that 20 foot or 40 foot international boxes?
SD60MAC9500 UP is currently in the process of completing a transload facility inside it's Global 4 (G4) Logistics Park in Joleit, IL. Completion is scheduled for Q4 21. The facility will create a backhaul of Midwestern Grains loaded into ISO containers for export to the West Coast. This is a great idea as trains can be filled out at point of origin instead of creating a work event down the road. Maybe UP is finally waking up, but time will tell.. News article here Photo Credit UP
No the farmer isn't going to deal with anyone but an elevator which functions as a bonded warehouse. The farmer might ship substandard product and there is no remedy since it only discovered in China or other destination. The bonded warehouse , as the term implies is bonded to insure that it actually has the goods of the named quality. Thus the consignee may have some recourse if the there is a dispute. In addition , just how many checks do you think they want to write for one cargo? Figuratively speaking of course since the cargo is paid for with a letter of credit. The buyer has the right to have an inspector but should he have to inspect 1250 containers or view one or two piles of grain at the elevator and spot check a bit. We're not talking the Saturday farmers market here, this is international commerce. You need a wake up call.
MidlandMike SD60MAC9500 Back in December of 2020 UP started shipping iron ore for export to the Port of Long Beach again. The ore is being shipped in trains of about 150-160 cars for export to China. Loads orginate in Southern Utah not sure what mine though... It's coming from Iron Mountain, near Cedar, Utah. It's been an on again, off again project, so I can see why they have not built ore dedicated loading facilities yet. https://utahrails.net/utahrails/iron-mountain-railroads.php
SD60MAC9500 Back in December of 2020 UP started shipping iron ore for export to the Port of Long Beach again. The ore is being shipped in trains of about 150-160 cars for export to China. Loads orginate in Southern Utah not sure what mine though...
Thanks Mike. I should've known the ore is coming from the Iron Mountain District. Alot of high grade magnetite in the area.
SD60MAC9500 Ship loader is a rather nebulous term. This is, y' know, the people's Republik of Kalifornia. Where a truck or piece of construction equipment built prior to 2009 does not exist and cannot be used. The answer, though is not to buy a fleet of Terex 60 ton haul trucks at huge expense when ordinary highway equipment will do the job and be marketable if the operation goes belly up. Even at twice as namy trips this would be cheaper. Those haul trucks are useless in applications such as copper minng where the hot number is the Lieberr 305 ton capacity model. Just think, it can haul 5 of those Tonka toys to the dump. Very little market for them if this doesn't work. A conveyor would be great but the cranes are already there and needed to put equipment in the holds to move material to trim the ship and level it . So the dump box is likely the best option there. It is not the pinnacle of efficiency but it works. I would not have wasted the money on those haul trucks when twice as many Macks at half the cost would do at least as good a job. BaltACD SD60MAC9500 Back in December of 2020 UP started shipping iron ore for export to the Port of Long Beach again. The ore is being shipped in trains of about 150-160 cars for export to China. Loads orginate in Southern Utah not sure what mine though. I'm curirous as too how they are shipping iron ore in aluminum hoppers. I wonder if they had their interiors coated to prevent cross corrosion of the aluminum. Any insight into this would be appreciated. Not sure that I have ever seen a more inefficient manner being used to load a bulk commodity into ocean going vessels. The volume is not there for them to invest in ship loaders. Plus this contract is not long term.
Ship loader is a rather nebulous term. This is, y' know, the people's Republik of Kalifornia. Where a truck or piece of construction equipment built prior to 2009 does not exist and cannot be used. The answer, though is not to buy a fleet of Terex 60 ton haul trucks at huge expense when ordinary highway equipment will do the job and be marketable if the operation goes belly up. Even at twice as namy trips this would be cheaper. Those haul trucks are useless in applications such as copper minng where the hot number is the Lieberr 305 ton capacity model. Just think, it can haul 5 of those Tonka toys to the dump. Very little market for them if this doesn't work. A conveyor would be great but the cranes are already there and needed to put equipment in the holds to move material to trim the ship and level it . So the dump box is likely the best option there. It is not the pinnacle of efficiency but it works. I would not have wasted the money on those haul trucks when twice as many Macks at half the cost would do at least as good a job.
Convicted One Perhaps they were concerned that if they didn't find a revenue back-haul, someone was likely to suggest they start hauling hides?
Now that you mention it... Oh, never mind.
UP derailment due to bridge collaspe. Is UP negleting its bridge PM ? Several UP bridge fires seem to indicate that fire danger not being cleared around wooden bridges ? Now we have this bridge collaspe It will be interesting to determine the reason for the bridge collaspe. Did train cause collaspe by derailing on bridge or did it collaspe under the weight of locos and / or train ?
Bridge collapse causes train derailment near Sibley, Iowa | KMEG (siouxlandnews.com)
The report that a bridge collapse caused the derailment is in error. Another site Iowa train derailment: Sibley evacuation order remains in place (desmoinesregister.com) said the report of a bridge collapse, also issued by a congressmen for the area, was in error. The congressmen's office says the bridge was destroyed by the derailment.
The only bridge that seems to be involved appears to be standing to me. It doesn't appear that there was a water course where the worst of the derailment is located. There appears to be at least one car derailed still on the bridge.
A day before there was a derailment at Albert Lea MN that also involved hazardous materials. Officials: Albert Lea train derailment spilled 40,000 gallons of hydrochloric acid | KAALTV.com
I brought home an empty grain train Sunday destined for a Minnesota elevator. Instead of going north via Mason City as planned, it was rerouted, taking the "scenic" route via Chicago.
Sometimes it pays to have your own RoW..
https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/65108-train-derails-near-lordsburg
That is pretty clear...
120 000 tons a MONTH.
Ships leave Port Hedland in Western Australia with 120 000 tons aboard, I think.
They have been leaving with 60 000 tons since the port was first open.
The ships must be carrying something else as well as iron ore....
Peter
Since this number 120,000 tons is in Australia is that really 120,000 tonnes ( metric ) ? Also isn't all ocean shipping listed in tonnes ?
blue streak 1Since this number 120,000 tons is in Australia is that really 120,000 tonnes ( metric ) ? Also isn't all ocean shipping listed in tonnes ?
H-h-h-m-m-m, wonder how long this will last? Afghanistan has heavy Iron Ore deposits and is one of the key reasons they are building a railway system in that country. I wonder if China has moved in yet to snap up those contracts?
China has just forced a reduction in iron ore prices...
The big problem is that Brazil hasn't recovered from the major failure of a dam adjacent to one of their iron ore mines and the country is suffering more than most from COVID-19.
But the quantities shipped are indeed in metrictonnes.
This is the report for April 2021
Pilbara Ports Authority has delivered a total monthly throughput of 60.6 million tonnes (Mt) for April 2021.
This throughput was a two per cent decrease compared to the same month in 2020.
The Port of Port Hedland achieved a monthly throughput of 45.8Mt of which 45.1Mt was iron ore exports. This was the same monthly throughput reported in March 2020.
Imports through the Port of Port Hedland totalled 186,000 tonnes, an increase of 29 per cent from the same month in 2020.
The Port of Dampier delivered a total monthly throughput of 13.8Mt, a decrease of nine per cent from March 2020.
Imports through the Port of Dampier totalled 39,000 tonnes, a decrease of 73 per cent from April 2020.
60 million tonnes per month is over 500 times the monthly shipments from Long Beach (but that is from two ports, Port Hedland and Dampier)
I couldn't find individual ship loads after a quick search.
But China is counting on Brazil returning to the market and forcing the price down from around $180 per tonne to around $50 per tonne. In the meantime may mines that couldn't operate at $50 per tonne are shipping ore. There is no point in adding capacity that would only pay at current iron ore prices because they won't last.
UP accelerates share repurchase program. Article here.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.