Railroad shipping: Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern introduce westbound intermodal service

Jeff Berman, Senior Editor -- Logistics Management, 10/2/2007

OMAHA, Neb. and NORFOLK, Va.—United States Class I railroads Union Pacific (UP) and Norfolk Southern (NS) said this week they have rolled out new westbound intermodal train service for standard intermodal freight from the Southeast region of the U.S. to Los Angeles.

The railroad carriers said this new service will shorten transit times from the Southeast to Los Angeles by a day. And they added that this new coast-to-coast service is part of their commitment “to improve capacity, service quality and speed by shifting domestic traffic to a new shorter route over the Shreveport, Louisiana gateway.

Union Pacific spokesman James Barnes told Logistics Management that this new intermodal offering makes the UP and NS endeavor a “full-service” intermodal offering for shippers.

 “Our goal is to try to get more eastbound service heading west,” said Barnes. “On average, we have approximately 139 eastbound railcars per train [as of September] originating in Los Angeles and coming back westbound we have approximately 114 railcars per train.”

UP and NS said in a statement that the new westbound service will offer fourth-morning availability for BlueSteak intermodal shipments from Atlanta to Los Angeles (BlueStreak is a premium intermodal service provided by the carriers from Los Angeles to Atlanta and Atlanta to Los Angeles that provides truck-competitive speeds of 600 miles per day; the BlueStreak cars are the only part of this offering for trailers that handles both containers and trailers), fifth morning service from Charlotte and Jacksonville, and sixth-morning service from Miami. 

They also said that they will offer an "on time" or free guarantee on the BlueStreak SuperFlyer service between the Southest and Los Angeles for a limited time

This service was originally launched in May when the railroads collaborated to make major improvements to eastbound domestic transcontinental service from Los Angeles to the Southeast. In May, UP and NS said that eastbound service improvements will be a result of shifting traffic from the Memphis gateway to the new Shreveport gateway. This new route, according to UP and NS, will combine UP’s Sunset Route between Los Angeles and Texas with NS’ and Kansas City Southern’s joint venture line between Shreveport and Meridian, Mississippi. A major benefit of this route is that it is 150 miles shorter than the current one, and they claim it is the shortest, fastest, and most reliable intermodal route between Los Angeles and other parts of the Southeast.