NS is dipping their toes back into a market that railroads abandoned long ago, less-than-carload boxcar service.
From Trains Magazine:
I think this is a great idea with a lot of potential, especially when combined with the Rail Pluse GPS-tracked railcar technology that NS is working on with G&W and Watco. There is a massive amount of traffic that could be wrestled away from trucks, especially in short to medium-haul corridors like Atlanta to Miami. Perhaps in 20 or so years boxcars will become a common sight on the back of intermodal trains.
I especially like this quote from Elkins:
From Trains Magazine:
NS launched the door-to-door service this month as an experiment in the Chicago-Atlanta-Miami corridor. Trucks pick up small loads and deliver them to a rail-served warehouse where the shipments are cross-docked into waiting boxcars. The boxcars then move in intermodal trains. The process is reversed at the destination, with trucks making the last-mile delivery.At a recent meeting of the Midwest Association of Rail Shippers (MARS), NS VP of Industrial Products Ed Elkins described the new service. It is a true LCL freight service with pallets of freight moving in boxcars which are transloaded to trucks at each node. They are experimenting with Chicago-Atlanta, Chicago-Miami, and Atlanta-Miami (those last two in conjunction with the Florida East Coast) corridors but want to expand the service to more lanes.
I think this is a great idea with a lot of potential, especially when combined with the Rail Pluse GPS-tracked railcar technology that NS is working on with G&W and Watco. There is a massive amount of traffic that could be wrestled away from trucks, especially in short to medium-haul corridors like Atlanta to Miami. Perhaps in 20 or so years boxcars will become a common sight on the back of intermodal trains.
I especially like this quote from Elkins:
NS has an experimental mindset and a willingness to fail when it tries new ways to tap the flexible freight market. “We think experimentation is incredibly important,” Elkins says.Great mindset to have, but it remains to be seen if NS fully adapts this mindset. If it does, this service will succeed.
“If you’re not failing, you’re not trying,” he adds.
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