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Re: UP announces Phoenix terminal-Yeah well.... As the Zen Master say's: "We'll See???"
Author: BOB2
Date: 11-30-2023 - 11:37
As was noted in the earlier post, the usual "minimum" break even haul for intermodal is over 500 miles. So it is an "interestng" press release from UP.
The economics are challenging because of the economics of handling and making up an efficient number of loads, loading them, hauling them, and unloading them at terminal.
If I have a container of big screen TV's for the Christmas sales at Best Buy, with pre packaged loads palleted for vaious Best Buy locations in the Phoenix market, am I going to wait for two or three hours to drive it to the ICTF, have it loaded on the train, have the train doubled over and set, and then take a minimum of 12 hours to get to Tucson, set the Phoenix cut out, add the Phoenix power and haul it and yard it in Phoenix for say another 3 or 4 hours, wait an hour to unload and have it picked up, and then begin making the deliveries to Best Buy?
Would I send a high value cargo like big screen TV's to Best Buy store in Phoenix from the POLA/POLB like this, with a minimum of a 16-20 hour tranist trip to Phoenix, when I could have been to Phoenix and have had the cargo's unloaded and being stocke on the floor for sale at the specific destination stores in about 12 hours by truck?
I could see the economics of having a Phoenix intermodal terminal for domestic containers or trailers in Phoenix going and coming from mostly the east, Mexico, or the the Pacific northwest by rail for many types of commodities.
But this nonsense about any serious market volumes, of much of the higher value of the goods, that might concievably go to or from the POLA/POLB to or from Phoenix, might seem to be an economic "miracle" of some kind...
On the other hand, if I had invested a dollar with Warren Buffet for every press release RR's and Sea Carriers have issued about all of the wonderful things they are doing to reduce ports truck traffic to and from the POLA/POLB, I'd be richer than Warren today....
The economics are challenging because of the economics of handling and making up an efficient number of loads, loading them, hauling them, and unloading them at terminal.
If I have a container of big screen TV's for the Christmas sales at Best Buy, with pre packaged loads palleted for vaious Best Buy locations in the Phoenix market, am I going to wait for two or three hours to drive it to the ICTF, have it loaded on the train, have the train doubled over and set, and then take a minimum of 12 hours to get to Tucson, set the Phoenix cut out, add the Phoenix power and haul it and yard it in Phoenix for say another 3 or 4 hours, wait an hour to unload and have it picked up, and then begin making the deliveries to Best Buy?
Would I send a high value cargo like big screen TV's to Best Buy store in Phoenix from the POLA/POLB like this, with a minimum of a 16-20 hour tranist trip to Phoenix, when I could have been to Phoenix and have had the cargo's unloaded and being stocke on the floor for sale at the specific destination stores in about 12 hours by truck?
I could see the economics of having a Phoenix intermodal terminal for domestic containers or trailers in Phoenix going and coming from mostly the east, Mexico, or the the Pacific northwest by rail for many types of commodities.
But this nonsense about any serious market volumes, of much of the higher value of the goods, that might concievably go to or from the POLA/POLB to or from Phoenix, might seem to be an economic "miracle" of some kind...
On the other hand, if I had invested a dollar with Warren Buffet for every press release RR's and Sea Carriers have issued about all of the wonderful things they are doing to reduce ports truck traffic to and from the POLA/POLB, I'd be richer than Warren today....
