More from Railex

Here is a more recent item about Railex. If you need background, read here and here. The most interesting part:

Railex depends on Priya's sophisticated inventory management system toincrease speed and accuracy. As trucks come into the warehouse, producepallets are either cross-docked for lot sales or graded, selected,packaged, and labeled with store brands for resale as packaged goods. Produce is then immediately loaded onto trains for cross-country transport. While the produce is in transit, Priya provides real-time inventory data to sales teams who sell the bulk produce en route so it can be cross-docked immediately onto trucks in New York for direct delivery.

Neat stuff. Elsewhere in the press release it mentions that Railex takes 250 trucks off the road.

Coast to Coast Produce Train Saves 110,000 Gallons of Fuel

Earlier I posted on a new coast-to-coast produce train terminating in Rotterdam, New York, just west of Schenectady.

Today's Albany Times Union has more. Here are the highlights:

Facility offers taste of future
Onions and apples, always in ideal environment, arrive at state-of-art distribution center

. . .

Railex is in the 12th week of an experiment to change the way produce is moved long distances. In some ways, it's a step back to the 1940s and 1950s, when refrigerated box cars moved perishables long distances.

But this is also what's called a unit train, with box cars that are never uncoupled and never pass through railyards to be switched among different trains. And unlike the trains of 50 years ago, each rail car is tracked constantly by satellite, its temperature and humidity closely monitored and adjusted to ensure conditions are ideal for each product being carried.

. . .

[Paul] Esposito, Railex's vice president for sales and logistics, said the train hasn't really increased the amount of produce flowing from the Pacific Northwest to the Northeast. Railex has just shifted it from truck to rail.

. . .

Railex's strategy is to use rail to move the produce long distances, cutting fuel costs by nearly 75 percent and giving the company an edge. The 55-car train consumes 40,000 gallons of diesel fuel on each one-way trip. Moving the same amount of produce by truck would consume about 150,000 gallons of fuel.

Recent trains have carried as much as 3,500 tons of produce each.

. . .

The coast-to-coast rail express, meanwhile, has been sold to wholesalers and growers as a cost-effective way to move their products. The trip is scheduled to take five days, about the same time as it would by truck.

But the trains have actually been making the trip in three or four days, not five. Only during the Great Plains blizzards two weeks ago did the train face delays, and even then it arrived a few hours early, Esposito said.

This answers the earlier questions I had about time of travel relative to trucking. The next question is, can Railex really undercut trucking-based distributors? And if so, by how much?

Stay tuned.

Coast-to-Coast Produce Train

Here's something from the Albany Times Union about a new coast-to-coast produce train linking Walula, Washington and Rotterdam, on the western end of Schenectady, New York.

Produce train arrives ahead of schedule
Express from Washington state to Rotterdam carries as much as 200 trucks

ROTTERDAM -- The inaugural run of an express produce train from Washington state apparently occurred without a hitch over the weekend.

The first train, due in Rotterdam today, arrived Sunday, a full two days ahead of schedule. Union Pacific Railroad and CSX Transportation jointly operate the train for Railex LLC, a unit of Ampco Distribution Services LLC of Riverhead, Long Island.

. . .

The first train carried potatoes, apples and onions, as well as a few cases of pears. The produce trains will use less fuel than the 200 trucks needed to move the same amount of produce, Railex officials have said.

What the article doesn't say and what I wish I knew was how much faster, if at all, the rail service is. Using less fuel is great, but unfortunately our current distribution system values time more than efficiency. The fuel efficiency of rail has always been true. What's new is the coordination (or elimination) of stops and transfers to make the coast-to-coast trip as quick as possible.

Still, it's good to see some investment in this type of transportation.