Western Railroad Discussion > BNSF to Close Fresno Pig Ramp

This coming Dec., BNSF plans to close the pig ramp at Fresno and have customers truck their containers/trailers to mariposa or San Berdoo....Very interesting...BNSf/SF closed the ramp in Bakersfield years ago and forced customers to truck to Fresno...According to san house gossip, BNSF is making room for the oil traffic that is expected to be pouring into Bakersfield.....So....So much for taking trucks off the freeways....If the ramp at Bakersfield were still open, a Fresno orginated train would make a pickup at Bakersfield and off they would go...I wonder what management is drinking these days???

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3520462,page=1

This is hard to understand. There are lots and lots of agricultural TOFC loads in the Central Valley, and lots of them also coming from the Salinas Valley directly to the BNSF Fresno ramp. Train after train of truck reefers on flats (TOFC) go over Tehachapi--BNSF basically owns that market, but here they are suddenly giving it a "cold shoulder." Not good.

If you're a load coming from Salinas, now you go over Pacheco Pass, then head north to Stockton, which is a little closer than Fresno, so that's not so bad, and the traffic isn't so bad, neither.

But if you're in Fresno, that's a tough one to sell. And Bakersfield?? Nobody wants to drive the I-5 Grapevine route into LA--that is horrible. And to get to San Berdoo, you have to head east on CA 58 to Kramer Junction, then south on old, narrow 2-lane US 395, then drop down I-15 into San Berdoo. 395 is already getting terribly beat up by all the trucks now coming down out of Reno--it's the fastest way from there to LA. The road isn't built for endless trucks maxed out on weight. So, from Bakersfield, that's about a 4-5 hr. drive, depending on weather and traffic. From Fresno, add another 2 hours Not fun at all.

Fresno is a major city, and thus should remain a major hub. UP has a big yard in Fresno--will they capitalize on this and now offer TOFC pig service to capture all those reefer trailers that loaded at BNSF?? Could be a good opportunity.

I would guess this announcement will have this effect:

--more local ag producers will switch over to BNSF's new unit reefer train service that has begun. Maybe that's the "silent" desire and intention of this ramp closing?

--or, those shippers will head to RAILEX and ship via them, being RAILEX is more established and now offers more destinations?

--or, if they still have a rail spur, or if any companies down there do transloading, will demand for loose reefer car service go up as a result?

--will this now drive UP to open a pig ramp, or offer more reefer service, from the Salinas Valley?

--shippers say "screw the RR!", and ship more by truck. But drivers are getting harder to find, so that may be more expensive due to rates.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/14 16:42 by coach.

Just drive over it to the U.P. in FRESNO.

I did not know they supped pigs out of Fresno.....

Posted from iPhone

CPRR Wrote:
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> I did not know they supped pigs out of Fresno.....
>
>
> Posted from iPhone

They don't. The former SP ramp is now where a contract company repairs refrigerated box cars.

Posted from Android

coach Wrote:
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> --more local ag producers will switch over to
> BNSF's new unit reefer train service that has
> begun.

This isn't a "BNSF" service, but another logistics company similar to Railex that's running this service. They are using BNSF reefer's and railroad though. I highly doubt BNSF would actually try on it's own to start a service like this. They apparently are only interested in unit bulk trains now.

Also don't think that UP even has a ramp now in Fresno. Think they truck theirs to Lathrop.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/14 19:58 by cpn456.

Makes more sense from the railroad stand point to combine the two. Mariposa has room for expansion. BNSF also gets out of having to pay and take the liability of the switch crews since Mariposa is contracted out. How much intermodal traffic honestly comes through Fresno? Everytime I've seen the ZFRNCHI it has been fairly small in regards to the trailers and stacks.

Posted from Android

It hasnt been any secret that any railroad prefers unit trains to individual carloads. Individual spurs mostly have given over to trans-loads etc. A number of years ago BNSF was trying to encourge shippers to get away from trailers and go to shipping containers for double stacking. Maybe its time to force the issue. Why would anyone prefer to ship one container/trailer on one car when you could ship two containers on one car?
Roger B

Railex announced they were shutting down their service due to poor BNSF service.

Railex uses UP and continue to expand; Jacksonville in June and Chicago soon. ColdTrain is the one who shut down in Washington due to poor BN service.

Bruce Stikkers
St. Joseph, IL

Guys...There is more to this closing the ramp at Fresno.....BNSF wants to discontinue crew changes in Fresno and have crews runs from Stockton to Bakersfield...this all sounds good, except you need double track to pull this off...right now, BNSF is busy dog-catching trains between Stockton and Fresno, because of increased traffic and track work that takes too long and when the oil trains start rolling to Bakersfield it will be close to a melt down.
Now BNSF wants to turn the Fresno yard into a switching yard for pickups and set outs only and according to the girls in the office, in the long run, BNSF plans to turn the Fresno yard into a Gepo switching operation...Another problem is the pack of idiots that are running Mariposa ramp...BNSF would rather pay less to a contract company then have their own men run the show and keep the Ramp running smooth..

Previous discussion on this: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3520462,3523928#msg-3523928 I won't repeat what I wrote there or what some others had to say, but overall, given the nature of balancing traffic, inbound vs. outbound, and the huge changes in logistics in the past years, I would guess the move is financially a good one and will have limited negative impact on BNSF in the future for market share.

Bruce

up833 Wrote:
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> It hasnt been any secret that any railroad prefers
> unit trains to individual carloads. Individual
> spurs mostly have given over to trans-loads etc.
> A number of years ago BNSF was trying to encourge
> shippers to get away from trailers and go to
> shipping containers for double stacking. Maybe its
> time to force the issue. Why would anyone prefer
> to ship one container/trailer on one car when you
> could ship two containers on one car?
> Roger B

Trailers are preferred by reefer truckers as the 53 ft trailer has the reefer motor hanging on the nose so there is a full 53ft of cargo space. With a reefer container the reefer motor takes up part of the 53ft cargo space.
Also, a container cannot handle the cargo weight that a trailer can handle, The difference can be 2000-4000lbs that is significant,
Also having a good chassis at destination can be a problem, delays occur with a bad chassis at destination.
So rates for trailers are higher but weight, cubic capacity, and chassis are not a problem.

gmojim