Kevin McCullen -- tricityherald.com -- March 22, 2010
Northwest agricultural producers and wineries soon could have a direct rail route for their products to the Southeast.
Railex is planning to open a new freight terminal in the Southeast that could add one or two more trains per week from its facility in Wallula to a location either in Florida or Georgia and back, said Jim Kleist, Railex's Northwest Region general manager.
A terminal could be added by the end of 2010, a company official told the trade publication, The Produce News. The location should be identified in the next few months, Paul Esposito, senior vice president of sales and logistics for the New York-based company, told the publication.
"We have customers who are looking forward to having customers in all four corners (of the country). Some have customers in the Southeast and have no options today to get their product there other than by truck," Kleist told the Herald.
"We also have customers who go to the Southeast and not the Northeast, and they are looking forward to the options," Kleist said.
On the return trip to Washington from the Southeast, it is possible trains could carry everything from juice or oranges from Florida to goods or agricultural products that originate in South America, he said.
The company already runs two trains a week from Wallula to its Northeast terminal in Rotterdam, N.Y., which is near Albany, and back. And Railex last year added another distribution site in Delano, Calif., and runs two trains each way weekly between New York and California.
Railex, which started in 2006, bills itself as a rolling warehouse. Trains from Washington now deliver everything from apples, onions, frozen vegetables, beer and cases of wine to New York in refrigerated, temperature-controlled freight cars.
Its 55-car unit trains -- which the company says are the equivalent of 220 trucks -- remain intact throughout the five-day trip between the East and West destinations, which avoids time delays in getting goods to buyers and prevents spoilage.
The company's railcars are equipped with satellite tracking systems that allow shippers to track their products, and the trains get priority handling on dedicated lines and stop only for refueling and crew changes.
Railex already has time slots reserved on rail lines to the Southeast, Kleist said.
"We go around (rail) yards. These trains do not come to a stop," said Kleist, noting Railex shipped rhododendrons on a recent train that arrived in the East Coast without any loss.
And Railex cars from New York have carried frozen fish byproducts -- which originated in Norway -- that went to Wallula and then were delivered by truck to ports in Alaska for use by crab fishermen, Kleist said.
Last year, the Wallula facility was approved as a bonded wine warehouse. That means local wineries can send cases of wine to the 210,000-square-foot warehouse in Wallula and not worry about having to pay taxes on the product until it is shipped to a buyer.
Eventually, Kleist said Railex could expand to a location in the Midwest to cover the central portion of the country.
"We offer predictability and dependability for our customers," he said. "We have a nice place in the transportation model."
-- Read the full article --
About Railex | Gallery | The Pressroom | Think Green | Maps | | Contact Us
© 2009 Railex, All Rights Reserved