Barilla Pasta to build in Avon

[Otto Vondrak]

Nice picture of progress in the June 2007 issue of Railpace.

-otto-

[bwparker1]

http://forums.railfan.net/forums.cgi?bo ... 1181256157

Barilla gets its first car...

[Otto Vondrak]

I think it's interesting they send 72 down there for the test train. Must have been nice for 72 to stretch its legs for once and clear the carbon out of the stacks!

-otto-

[railwatcher]

I think it's interesting they send 72 down there for the test train. Must have been nice for 72 to stretch its legs for once and clear the carbon out of the stacks!

-otto-

Otto, #72 has been in town alot lately, for the spreading of ballast along the new track into Barilla, and along the main. Also it did some switch work at Kraft, I got the pictures of #72 behind my house.

Greg

[railwatcher]

Avon is buzzing with Barilla talk this week. Everyone speaking of the new plant and its openning. Welcome Barilla signs are up around town. A group will be traveling to Barilla and Fratellis restraunt this week by tour bus from Golden Memories. Looks like things will be cranking up at the plant. Anybody heard when they when regular plant production is due to start? I know they are recieving inbound carloads, is there any consideration for outbound shipping by rail?

[Luther Brefo]

Avon is buzzing with Barilla talk this week. Everyone speaking of the new plant and its openning. Welcome Barilla signs are up around town. A group will be traveling to Barilla and Fratellis restraunt this week by tour bus from Golden Memories. Looks like things will be cranking up at the plant. Anybody heard when they when regular plant production is due to start? I know they are recieving inbound carloads, is there any consideration for outbound shipping by rail?

Good to hear that the town is welcoming Barilla,

Avon was great without Barilla, but now it is even better! A boost into local economy is always a good thing!

As far as I have been told, Barilla will be outbound by truck at this stage in the game. This does not mean that they could not ship by rail in the future although I think this Barilla was built for the regional (Northeast) market.

[bwparker1]

Pasta = Light Weight = Truck for outbound shipments

But never say never, as total distance traveled matters too!

BWP

[railwatcher]

Brooks, there is also volume of sales to reach particular shipping points.

i.e: carloads to a Walmart Warehouse, or supermarket warehouse. etc etc etc.

Better buying and shipping means better market prices.

Greg

[alsorailfan]

There is an interesting article on the Barilla plant in the 'Rochester Business Journal' today including a description of the operations inside.

How many tons of wheat does a covered hopper hold??

How much wheat to make a ton of pasta??

Too bad that LAL wasn't mentioned in the article as it seemed that they really help draw in the Barilla people.

Chris

[Luther Brefo]

Barilla will also be in the news tonight of the local FOX station.

Today was the official opening day/ribbon cutting.

[RailKevin]

Pasta = Light Weight = Truck for outbound shipments

Those pasta loads are not light. I own and operate a truck (booo! ) and last March I picked up a load of pasta at the Barilla plant in Ames, IA and delivered it to the Barilla plant in Avon. There were about 2,000 cases on 33 pallets, and the weight was 43,000 lbs. As a comparison, the max load most trucks can carry is 45,000 lbs.

I just checked the internet load board and discovered that these shipments continue even now. Also, I found outbound loads to places like NYC, NJ, and CT. Barilla will have to ship by truck to places that cannot receive trains (or that cannot handle too much pasta at once).

[railwatcher]

Rail Shipments for Barilla are currently inbound only. There are no loading facilities with tracks at this time. I would think that rail shipments should be a thing of the future, due to shipping costs and volume purchases to large cooperatives or chains.

[bwparker1]

Pasta = Light Weight = Truck for outbound shipments

Those pasta loads are not light. I own and operate a truck (booo! ) and last March I picked up a load of pasta at the Barilla plant in Ames, IA and delivered it to the Barilla plant in Avon. There were about 2,000 cases on 33 pallets, and the weight was 43,000 lbs. As a comparison, the max load most trucks can carry is 45,000 lbs.

I just checked the internet load board and discovered that these shipments continue even now. Also, I found outbound loads to places like NYC, NJ, and CT. Barilla will have to ship by truck to places that cannot receive trains (or that cannot handle too much pasta at once).

I found this information interesting...

Check out this link, it confirms what I suspected about Maximum weights for Boxcars:

http://www.alaskarails.org/fp/Boxcars.html

The Maximum load on certain box cars can approach either 263,000 lbs. or 286,000 lbs. While pasta weighing 43,000 is heavy, that weight equals 6.65 truckloads for 1 box car that can handle the maximum load of 286,000 lbs. The problem is physical space. While I didn't see your truck, my guess is that it was pretty full, if not totally full.

I am in no way a logistics expert, but one rule of thumb appears to be that the heavier the commodity in relation to its volume, the likelihood of rail being cost effective increases. In the case of pasta, a boxcar of pasta is the same as a truckload of pasta, in that you can fit about the same amount in either container. Therefore, trucks would seem to have the obvious advantages when shipping finished loads of pasta. That was the basis for my original statement of:

Pasta = Light Weight = Truck

Brooks

[RailKevin]

Okay, Brooks, I see what you are saying now about "light weight."

As far as the "fullness" of the truck, I can tell you it was not "cubed out." There are two reasons: the weight of each pallet prevents stacking palletized cargo on each other, and the maximum weight allowed per axle (or group of axles). For example, when the load begins to approach the maximum allowed for the entire vehicle, care must be taken as to how the load weight is distributed within the trailer. The maximum weight for the tractor and trailer tandems are 34,000 lbs each (and 12,000 lbs for the steer axle). Very roughly speaking, this means a load weight of 46,000 lbs (almost my max) must be evenly placed in the trailer from the nose to the 48' mark. In the case of heavy loads, the last 5' of trailer space is unusable (due to "bridge law" or the spacing between the kingpin and the center of the trailer tandems).

It seems to me that a box car would have an advantage when it comes to heavier loads (due to a higher gross weight). In the case of pasta, though, a way to double/triple stack the pallets would have to be devised.

[bwparker1]

Okay, Brooks, I see what you are saying now about "light weight."

As far as the "fullness" of the truck, I can tell you it was not "cubed out." There are two reasons: the weight of each pallet prevents stacking palletized cargo on each other, and the maximum weight allowed per axle (or group of axles). For example, when the load begins to approach the maximum allowed for the entire vehicle, care must be taken as to how the load weight is distributed within the trailer. The maximum weight for the tractor and trailer tandems are 34,000 lbs each (and 12,000 lbs for the steer axle). Very roughly speaking, this means a load weight of 46,000 lbs (almost my max) must be evenly placed in the trailer from the nose to the 48' mark. In the case of heavy loads, the last 5' of trailer space is unusable (due to "bridge law" or the spacing between the kingpin and the center of the trailer tandems).

It seems to me that a box car would have an advantage when it comes to heavier loads (due to a higher gross weight). In the case of pasta, though, a way to double/triple stack the pallets would have to be devised.

Thanks for the reply RailKevin.

How you load a truck reminds me of how they fly little planes... Sometimes, they want everyone's weight and the weight of the luggage so that everything can be balanced out correctly.

It would probably be tough to cube out a box car as well for pasta for the same pallet reasons that you mention.

Thanks for the input.

BWP