Railroad Forums 

  • New rail-served warehouse in Sparta

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New Jersey
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New Jersey

Moderator: David

 #1595375  by JohnFromJersey
 
Dcell wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 10:34 am Nice to see a developer utilizing nearby rail service. The mega warehouses along the Turnpike around 8A lack rail service.
I forgot what it's called but a lot of warehouses' operation and distribution techniques don't work well with rail service.

Ironically enough, the rail service to this warehouse might cause issues for it since the nosey neighbors who are claiming it's a trucking terminal have water to their argument due to the fact that there's rail service.
 #1596826  by New Haven 1
 
What is ironic here is that those very same nosy neighbors would be the first to kick and scream when local government tells them that their property taxes will need to go up because there isn't enough commercial industrial tax base to make up the difference!
 #1624985  by Ken W2KB
 
Hopefully a significant amount of rail traffic will in fact be used, and the provision for rail at the warehouse is not simply a ploy to partially counter arguments typically voiced by the local opponents that the warehouse will excessively and unreasonably increase truck traffic on the local roads. If the warehouse facility is ultimately permitted time will tell.
 #1624998  by New Haven 1
 
One of the biggest issues that shippers have with rail is the transit times which when dealing with perishables that have limited shelf life can literally eat into a company's bottom line. My employer, whom I cannot name is a worldwide conglomerate that does use rail where they can but, on the other hand doesn't use it more due to this shortcoming.

The rail industry has made some inroads to address this problem but, not consistently across the nation's network. I literally just had a meeting with upper management about one of our locations where rail would be beneficial simply because of the location's proximity to available rail power, and local partners but, this is an exception.

What doesn't help this is the larger railroads continually trying to eliminate crew positions while pushing the remaining people to put in even more hours to make their bottom line better for shareholders.

It would be great if the major railroads paused long enough to realize that their employees and customers make the money for them and, not the shareholders. This is why short lines succeed where they no longer can.
 #1625001  by R36 Combine Coach
 
New Haven 1 wrote: Sat Jul 01, 2023 2:41 pm One of the biggest issues that shippers have with rail is the transit times which when dealing with perishables that have limited shelf life can literally eat into a company's bottom line.
Most infamously, when the bulk of Maine's 1969 potato harvest season was lost, while in transit at Selkirk on PC.
 #1625027  by CharlieL
 
Apparently, some businesses were severely burned by the transportation issues over the last 2 years and are thinking of modifying "just in time" (kanban) ordering, and are either thinking about or actually maintaining some minimal level of inventory. This might help ease some of rail transport's woes