United Parcel Service (UPS) has long been the largest user of rail intermodal services in the United States. Recently it added another rail "first": The parcel shipping giant became the first shipper to take advantage of new expedited rail services offered by Union Pacific and CSX Corp.

These new "super services" make the trip from New York to southern California in just 63 hours, a time that's very competitive with the 60-hour transit time for team-driven trucks. The faster service allows Big Brown to guarantee four-day coast-to-coast delivery rather than the previous five-day promise.

Union Pacific, CSX, and other U.S. railroads have begun promoting expedited services, hoping to court new business that requires swifter deliveries and woo shippers away from trucks the way it did UPS. One way they are trying to accomplish that is by getting trains out according to hard-and-fast schedules rather than waiting until intermodal trains are full.

UPS opted for expedited rail services because four-day delivery could solve its "Monday package" problem, says Norman Black, manager of national media relations. For packages that need to arrive on Tuesday or later, UPS can use its trucks or slower trains over the weekend and still deliver them on time. But packages that are scheduled for delivery Monday mornings need to arrive near their destinations on Friday morning to make that deadline.

The new expedited rail service avoids that problem. To speed transit times, UP and CSX use dedicated routes that bypass bottlenecks such as Chicago. Getting the trains from one coast to the other in just three days necessitates not one but two double crews—and the carriers have gotten the crew change down to a 30-second science, Black says.

At present, UPS is moving a total of about 110 units eastbound and westbound each week under the new service, which has had a perfect on-time record since it started in July. The package carrier's endorsement of the new, faster service promises to be a shot in the arm for the railroads. "The purpose is to provide the sort of service reliability that can attract more time-sensitive shipments," says Tom White, director, editorial services for the Association of American Railroads. "It's able to attract more customers who are concerned about timeliness of delivery." White also notes that intermodal traffic has been the fastest-growing rail segment for years, surging from 3 million units 20 years ago to 9.3 million last year. Intermodal deliveries for 2003 are currently 6 percent above 2002's figures, he adds.

Dan Murphy, director of corporate communications for CSX Corp., says the emergence of expedited service is "new territory made possible by the cooperation between railroads and the fact that the railroads are running better than they have." He foresees strong growth in this area, in part because the railroads have the advantage of lower cost.

"Intermodal is 15 to 20 percent cheaper (than truck)," Murphy explains. "If we can match over-the-road trucking quality, we'll have more business than we can handle. The inherent economic advantages of rail are there. The better and more reliable we can make our service, the more truck business we can get."