Is UPS quitting the railroads?

[Dracula]

The railroads are riding the Bakken shale oil boom and UPS is on the outside looking in.


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On the outside looking in? How so?

Should we be shipping shale oil in packages?

 

[Wally]

I heard we were running teams to Texas from NJ. They get there in 3 days. True or not?

 

[alwaysoverallowed]

The railroads are riding the Bakken shale oil boom and UPS is on the outside looking in.


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Yup. The shale is tying up the lines moving eastward. The RR companies aren't ruining more lines and the trains are getting held up at every stop because most refineries aren't able to handle the large amount of rail coming in quickly.

 

[prodriver]

I see plenty of fedex trailers at the railyard.

I know FedEx freight uses rail, have you seen ground or express trailers.

 

[barnyard]

I know FedEx freight uses rail, have you seen ground or express trailers.

I have seen ground and freight on trains.

UPS is not the only rail shipper hurting right now. We have a coal fired power plant south of our center and the reserve coal pile is almost gone. I delivered there the other day and asked about it and he said that another power plant ran out of coal, cannot get rail shipments so they are getting coal as close as they can with barges and trucking it to the power plant.

Trucking that kind of volume of coal has got to be a losing proposition.

BNSF is building a 2nd mainline in ND and is rumored to be planning to add mainline near me. That will help trains that are heading to the west coast or coming from there, but does nothing to clear the congestion east of Chicago.

 

[MethodsMan]

Something is going on. Monday's we've been getting slammed.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

On the outside looking in? How so?

Should we be shipping shale oil in packages?

The oil is taking priority over our containers.

 

[Covemastah]

UPS has purchased a lot of containers in past few years to double stack them on to the rail cars, so I don't see them leaving the rails anytime soon. As far as FedEx I am at the rail 10 to 15 times a week in Worcester MA, and I never see them!!

 

[robot]

Whenever the train is late I usually see 10-15 FedEx drivers waiting on the trailers with us

 

[MoarTape]

They're looking to add a ton of drivers all over. I don't know if they're expecting a lot of retirements or what. Newpa is trying to add 50. I know Harpa is adding just as many. Same down in Baltimore.

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[MaceFremonti]

Burt looking for close to 50...

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[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

We are adding 10 drivers for package.

 

[Quigley]

Its true, no more trains between Chicago and Seattle

 

[Quigley]

I think there will be a lot of new sleeper teams hired.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

That would be the route that the I heard rumor was based on. It would also be the line that is seeing the most congestion do to oil and BNSF won't have that fixed for at least 2 years.

My boss said he had heard the same rumor and is hoping that some of the work can be based out of my building (my building used to be a TA point for shuttle loads.) If 2 jobs are added to my building, I would get 1 of them. There is

TA----Turn Around?

 

[barnyard]

Its true, no more trains between Chicago and Seattle

That would be the route that the I heard rumor (I mean FNN story) was based on. It would also be the line that is seeing the most congestion due to oil and BNSF won't have that fixed for at least 2 years.

My boss said he had heard the same rumor and is hoping that some of the work can be based out of my building (my building used to be a TA point for shuttle loads.)

This kind of congestion has been predicted for years by rail economists, except they were predicting the congestion to start at container terminals and radiate out from there. Railroads agreed with the predictions and have been expanding capacity around deep water ocean ports.

Anyways, I am hopin a FT feeder gig is in my future.

 

[barnyard]

I think there will be a lot of new sleeper teams hired.

Last year when I was on a vacation, I spoke to a feeder guy out of Glendive, MT. He said that all they do are shuttle runs from his building, more feeder jobs than package jobs. He pulls a set of trips out, trades at his meet and pulls a set back.

 

[Quigley]

There are no sleeper teams teams in Montana. But to go from Chicago to Spokane or Seattle I cant see the company using shuttle runs. Too many drivers versus a few sleeper teams.

 

[pretender]

TA----Turn Around?

Yes

 

[barnyard]

Just got off the phone was a FNN rep. He said that the hubs he goes to have been crawling with independents this week and that the union gave the company 30 days to train drivers for new runs.