Western Railroad Discussion > What happened to UP's IOASE?

The IOASE (Oakland to Seattle intermodal)while running only once a week (leaving Oakland Sunday evenings)has been a very consistent train for several years. It seems to have stopped running over the last few weeks. Anyone know, is this train permanently annulled or is this a temporary situation? Normally this train is mostly a repo move but has always included loads up front....

Looking at its records, it shows departing Oakland every Sunday night in December, as well as the 6th, 13th, and 20th of this month. Like you said it's been a fairly consistent train the past several years. They either annulled it due to the major track work between Roseville and Dunsmuir (10-12 hour work windows) or there possibly wasn't enough cars for Brooklyn and/or Seattle to justify a train this week.

So if trucking companies did drop off trailers for shipment, but the train isn't called, how is that handled? Does UP tell the shipper to wait another week for transit??

coach Wrote:
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> So if trucking companies did drop off trailers for
> shipment, but the train isn't called, how is that
> handled? Does UP tell the shipper to wait another
> week for transit??

Move it to another train.

In this case, there are no other trains. The once-weekly IOASE has been the only northbound intermodal train operating out of Oakland going to Portland/Seattle. Sort of pathetic in that there is probably a stack train's worth (or more) of trucks/containers rolling on I-5 between Seattle/Portland and the Bay Area every hour of the day.

dshgamble Wrote:
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> In this case, there are no other trains. The
> once-weekly IOASE has been the only northbound
> intermodal train operating out of Oakland going to
> Portland/Seattle. Sort of pathetic in that there
> is probably a stack train's worth (or more) of
> trucks/containers rolling on I-5 between
> Seattle/Portland and the Bay Area every hour of
> the day.

Trucks,,,without a doubt. Containers from Oakland to the PNW, I seriously don't think you would see even a hand full, since the revenue won't even pay the fuel costs to Portland, let alone Seattle.
I see cans going by on I-5 all day long, but they won't go any further south than Medford with import/export traffic. The domestic loads pay better, but it amounts to a pretty skimpy pay check for owner/operators and the brokers tend to leave it alone.

Larry Dodgion
Wilsonville, OR

AlbinaRunThrough Wrote:
> or there possibly wasn't
> enough cars for Brooklyn and/or Seattle to justify
> a train this week.



an oakland to tacoma power move landed in brooklyn tonight, that should add another ingredient to your mystery stew!