transportation services for Railex

“The second weekly service is starting just as a lot of fresh California produce is starting to be harvested,” said John Philp, assistant vice president for food products at UP. “It may be that the second weekly service will end up being seasonal.”Out of the Washington area, nearly all the farm goods moved by Railex are storage crops — potatoes, apples, pears and onions that are harvested, put in storage and sold throughout the year. “It’s a very steady demand there,” Philp said. “The fresh produce in California may not sustain two weekly services all year long.”

In addition to providing transportation services for Railex, UP offers its own refrigerated services — both carload and intermodal.Five years ago, UP invested in thousands of new reefer boxcars. It has the rail industry’s largest fleet of refrigerated equipment. With the decline in rail cargo over the past year, Philp said reefer business has been a bright spot. In fact, during a conference call with Wall Street analysts, the sector got a special mention.

There's a lot of opportunity in New England and the Capital Region."

The partnership "gets Norfolk Southern into the New England market, which is something we've been trying to do since we acquired 58 percent of Conrail," Husband said. "There's a lot of opportunity in New England and the Capital Region."
CSX officials could not be reached Tuesday for comment. And calls to Pan Am Railways over two days weren't returned.
The partnership could be good news for Saratoga and Schenectady counties. Norfolk Southern is seeking to lure freight from the highways with its intermodal trains, where truck trailers travel on flat cars. With a shortage of truck drivers and diesel prices nearing $4.80 a gallon, Husband said a high-speed rail corridor could compete.
A study last year by the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization projected that highways in Massachusetts would carry 222 million tons of freight by 2010, compared to 20 million tons for railroads. The figures were projected to climb to 265 million tons on the highways by 2020, compared to 25 million tons on the rails.

But railroads have successfully competed with trucks elsewhere.

CSX and Union Pacific Railroad teamed up in October 2006 to operate an express produce train for Railex LLC once a week between Washington state and Rotterdam. A second train, carrying California produce to the Capital Region, is expected to operate beginning this fall, when construction of a new terminal in Kern County, Calif., is completed. Railex also plans to operate a second train from Washington state, officials have said.

Norfolk Southern buys stake in rail line to boost Capital Region business

Norfolk Southern buys stake in rail line to boost Capital Region business

ERIC ANDERSON -- Times Union -- May 21, 2008

Norfolk Southern Railway Co. is buying a 50 percent stake in a historic rail line linking Mechanicville and Ayer, Mass., outside Boston, in a bid to boost service in the Capital Region and New England.
As part of an agreement with the current owner, Pan Am Railways, the 155-mile line will undergo $87.5 million in improvements, including new track and signals. In all, Norfolk, Va.-based Norfolk Southern will pay $140 million for its share of the line, which has been dubbed the Patriot Corridor.The deal includes another 281 miles of connecting track, including trackage rights. A new company, Pan Am Southern, will own the track. North Billerica, Mass.-based Pan Am Railways -- the former Guilford Transportation Co. -- will have an equal stake with Norfolk Southern in the newly created entity.
"We have identified the Capital Region as being an area that certainly is in need of some new facilities," said Norfolk Southern spokesman Rudy Husband. "We've cobbled together a service we operate over Canadian Pacific lines between Binghamton and the Albany area.

"We hope we're going to bring a higher level of competition to the Capital Region," he added.
With the breakup of Conrail in 1999, CSX Transportation took over its tracks in the Capital Region and New England. Norfolk Southern, meanwhile, got Conrail's Southern Tier route through Binghamton, Elmira and Jamestown.

"This is good news for the long-term reliability of the system, said Meira."

The navigation locks at The Dalles, John Day and Lower Monumental dams will close December 10, 2010 for major repairs, closing the dams for 14, 14, and 13 weeks respectively. Maintenance outages at McNary, Lower Granite, Ice Harbor Dam, Bonneville, Little Goose and Lower Monumental will be undertaken during this time.

The locks will be closed from Dec. 10, 2010 to March 18, 2011, and barge traffic from the Dallles Dam to Lewiston, Ida. will be impossible, though traffic below the dam will still be passable.

Ten million tons of cargo, worth an estimated $2 billion, moves through the system annually, much of it agricultural products. Potato growers will feel less of an impact, because most of the crop is trucked to the Port of Seattle, although they will see increased competition for trucks. Rail companies will be increasing cars to compensate, but the cargo space will be shared by everyone affected by the closure, potentially creating problems.

"A lot of wheat has to go by truck, so it's going to make it tough to find trucks if the trucks are tied-up taking wheat to market," said Chris Voight, executive director of the Washington Potato Commission.

"This is going to be more of a problem for packing sheds and processors. They're the ones who have to be a little nervous, because they're the ones who have to compete with the wheat industry."

River closure could impact truck traffic

River closure could impact truck traffic

Everett Brazil III -- Spudman -- June 2, 2010

Barge traffic along the Columbia-Snake River System is scheduled for a temporary closure at the end of 2010 for repair of locks that will maintain the long-term reliability of the river system, leaving short-term impacts on cargo transportation throughout the Northwest.

"The Portland, Ore. and Walla Walla, Wash. districts of the Army Corps of Engineers are implementing a long-term plan for major maintenance of the lock system, and the stimulus package provided enough funds for three projects to be tackled during lock closure," said Kristin Meira, government relations director for the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, Portland.

"This is good news for the long-term reliability of the system, said Meira."

The navigation locks at The Dalles, John Day and Lower Monumental dams will close December 10, 2010 for major repairs, closing the dams for 14, 14, and 13 weeks respectively. Maintenance outages at McNary, Lower Granite, Ice Harbor Dam, Bonneville, Little Goose and Lower Monumental will be undertaken during this time.

The locks will be closed from Dec. 10, 2010 to March 18, 2011, and barge traffic from the Dallles Dam to Lewiston, Ida. will be impossible, though traffic below the dam will still be passable.

follow a Railex train as it hauls produce from Wallula

A History Channel program airing Tuesday night will follow a Railex train as it hauls produce from Wallula, Wash., to the company’s east coast terminus in Rotterdam.

The company’s operations will be the subject of the hour-long "Extreme Trains" episode airing at 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to the History Channel’s Web site.

Paul Esposito, vice president of sales and logistics for Railex, said the episode will offer an inside look of how the company teamed with Union Pacific to move food across the country in less than five days. He said the program was filmed about three months ago and features the various techniques the company uses to keep produce fresh during its coast-to-coast journey.

“They follow it from tree to plate,” he said.

Hosted by Matt Bown, "Extreme Trains" delves into the inner workings of the railroads and the difficult conditions many work under to keep them running. In addition to featuring existing railroad services, the program examines how trains have helped shape American history

Railex is not only shipping Mid-Columbia wines to the East Coast.

Railex is not only shipping Mid-Columbia wines to the East Coast, now the company’s cold storage warehouse in Wallula has been approved as a bonded wine warehouse.Now winery customers can save money on storage, cut out extra steps in the distribution process and maintain constant safe temperatures for the wine.

Railex, a refrigerated rail transport company, offers five-day, non-stop refrigerated shipping from its Burbank warehouse to a similar facility in Rotterdam, New York. The cars are never separated or changed during the trip, which means there’s no chance of cars being left behind or product being lost. And the company provides GPS monitoring of each car, allowing customers to monitor progress and the status of the refrigeration system. Joe Fraser, Ste. Michelle’s vice president of operations and supply chain, said the winery has been using Railex for more than a year to ship its wine and now is storing wine at the facility, as well.

Previously the company used refrigerated trucks to ship hundreds of thousands of cases of wine each year to the East Coast. The company had tried traditional rail service, which is less expensive than trucking, but there were too many risk factors, Fraser said.The rail schedules were inconsistent — sometimes the wine would get to the East Coast in two weeks, other times it took four.
A railcar of wine could accidentally be left in switching yards, where the cars are transferred from train to train to reach their destination.And there was no way to track the car or know where it was when a distributor called to ask about the status of an order.Plus, the rocky ride on traditional railcars, with the cars being hooked and unhooked intermittently during the trip, requires extra packaging to prevent breakage.

These are all problems Fraser doesn’t have to worry about with Railex, which has made the five-day trek once a week since its first train left Wallula in fall 2006. During some heavy harvest periods, the company has amped up to two trains per week.And since the railcars stay linked together during the entire trip, no extra packaging is needed. The company can ship the wine in the same packaging it uses on semi-trucks. 

Less packaging saves the company money and means less waste and a smaller carbon footprint, something that’s very important to the company, Fraser said. About a million cases of Ste. Michelle wines will be loaded onto Railex trains this year, he said.And, although it still takes a lot of fuel to get the wine to its destination, fewer trucks are on the road.