Home Depot in Camillus

I wonder why the Home Depot in Camillus doesn't get any of their goods from the FGLK Rwy. The line(Auburn Road) is right in front of their parking lot and there seems to be enough room to build a siding to behind the store. Hope one of the FGLK guys can educate me about this.

Im sure Home Depot has a very well developed and organized truck delivery system for their hundreds of stores..
wouldnt make sense to have things shipped by rail from far-off locations, with all the special organization that would entail, just for one store..
the trucks work much better for them in sure!
and probably all Home Depots get restocked from a central warehouse..
and the odds are good that a railroad doesnt connect the central warehouse with the Camillus Home Deopt!
its just a matter of efficiency.

If it was say just an independent, single-store "mom & pop" place,
then maybe they would consider rail..
but not a "big box" chain..
im sure individual Walmarts dont get anything delivered by rail either, even if tracks ran 10 feet away..

Scot

I've often wondered this myself. As an example the 84 Lumber in Dewitt
is served by rail( right next to the yard) but the one in Oriskany right
next to the main is not. Go figure.

STEAM ON
/--OOO--:-oo--oo-

You got me wondering about the 84 just east of Auburn. Haven't been there in a while but I think the NYC serviced it. Also , I wonder if the 84 on Rt 20 at the crossover bridge in Guilderland is serviced by CSX.

The 84 lumber in Auburn had a sideing and was served by the railroad for years. I can rember still seeing Centerbeams, Bulkhead Flats, Double Plug Door Boxcars, and ALL Door Box cars in there at one time or anouther. The switch was removed I want to say 2 years befor the State closed the bridge that once stood next to the 84 Lumber. The sideing may have been removed by Finger Lakes in eather 1995 or 1996 and used else where.

The Grossmens Lumber Yard just off of Clark Street in Auburn never had Rail Service even thow the railroad tracks ran just 30-40 yards behind that lumber yard.

If you walk around in the field next to the Home Depot you'll find segments of Railroad Track left over from the industrys that once stood on that site long ago there are even some old switch ties still in place next to the FGLK main line where the sideing(s) ones joined.

The industry that was there up to the eighties is still there-it just moved across Hinsdale Rd. So, there was no loss to the railroad as far as customers. Conrail used to service it even when they took the rest of the line out of service.

I believe that siding was there long before 84 lumber move to that location? That same siding continues across Rt 290 along sode the old Sears Wharehouse, and then to other points.

Anyone know if that Tracy Road equipment in DeWitt by the yard ever have railroad traffic? As far as geting construction equipment, trucks, and outher odds and ends?

Most retail stores rely on "just in time" inventory. While it costs more to truck everything, they don't have the expensive overhead of maintaining an inventory in each store for products they don't need at a particular time of the year. In retail, you're leasing space by the square foot - so you need to maximize how efficiently you use that space.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Home Depot was served by rail at it's main distribution centers. There was talk back in the 90's that Home Depot would build a distribution center in Webster at the western end of the Ontario Midland Railroad on the old Webster Lumber site and utilize rail access - but it never went anywhere. Maybe for larger items like lumber they transload the stuff in regional locations and truck it into the stores? I dunno.

Les,

That is exactly what the Central New Englad Railroad does. They serve a Home Depot distribution center in Bloomfield, CT as their only customer. Obviously, the Home Depot brings in enough by rail that they can exist with only 1 customer, and they (CNER) run about 5 times a week. It is very close to my parents house in CT. Some Big Boxes like Home Depot do maximize Rail Advantages regionally. It is my understanding that Walmart doesn't use rail for ANYTHING, because they have there own trucking company.

Brooks

In Newark, NJ along the NEC a mile south of Penn Station is a yard that is very busy with carloads of lumber. The lumber is offloaded from rail onto trucks going to various lumberyards in the area. That's probably less expensive than maintaining a switch, etc for what might amount to only a few carloads a year for a smaller lumberyard.

Walmart used to ship there truck trailers by rail a long time ago I can rember seeing them on Conrail trains here in New York back in the late 90's and as late as 2001 befor I stoped seeing them.

P&C Foods used to have a rail sideing in North Syracuse but took the sideing out clameing that it was cousting them to much money to ship by rail.

Wegmans has never shiped anything by rail they have have when they started out in the early 1900's till trucks came along. They eather fly or truck everything in now. I know this becuse I work for the company. All thow I seem to beleve that there is a photo of what looks to be an old time Ice Reefer hanging up in are store at a loading dock taken in the early 1900's at the Rochestor Fruit and Veitable Comapny where Wegmans got started.

as for wegmans, the warehouse near the airport had a siding that came from behind the rochester and southerns offices. so im sure they used to get cars from the railroad back in the day.

I'm sure Wegmans used to get things in by Rail as well. There standered of shipping is vary tough for Frozen and outher Parashable idems. If we get a trailer that is so much as one degree over 40 degrees the truck is rejected and sent back to Rochestor. So I'm beting that the temp read out on the rail cars was not to there likeing. Do REEFER Cars get refuled every few hundred miles??