Western Railroad Discussion > Amazon

Last year Amazon purchased several hundred 53ft vans to be used to transfer inventories between Amazon distribution centers and their full fillment centers.

Today in Transport Topics issue April 24 an article quotes John Larkin managing director at Stifel, Nicolaus and Company at the Nasstrac Shippers Conference and Transportation Exposition held in Orlando, Florida on April 9-12 2017. He states that Amazon has placed a large order for brand new tractors.

The bigger news is that Amazon has purchased 4000 53ft Amazon domestic containers and is in discussion with BNSF for an intermodal contract.

So watch for those Amazon 53ft containers on the BNSF

Someone is going to loose some business I would suspect as Amazon places these in service

Info from Transport Topics April 24 2017

Dale Smith



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/17 16:46 by mearsksealand.

Yeah I have already seen a couple out here in the Stockton, CA area. Pretty cool.

Amazon does amazing things in its fulfillment business. Their predictive software routes stuff to warehouses nearest the likely buyers. And constantly rebalances inventory.

Posted from Android

Anyone have a photo of an Amazon container?

Cliffs619 Wrote:
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> Anyone have a photo of an Amazon container?

Nice shot here: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4160371,page=1

The pictures shown in the post are of the 53 ft trailers.

The 4000 53 ft containers are like the 53 ft JB Hunt and/or Schneider 53ft

Dale Smith

Posted from iPhone

Amazons blue looks like C.H. Robinson's blue containers.

Posted from Android

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Amazon does amazing things in its fulfillment
> business. Their predictive software routes stuff
> to warehouses nearest the likely buyers. And
> constantly rebalances inventory.
>
> Posted from Android

There's a reason why they've been pushing "Amazon Cloud." Predictive software can't function without mountains of data, and much of that is private information. They've been good at protecting that information from unauthorized use, but along with the accolades, people should know what goes on behind the scenes.

I've received a number of "junk mail" and SPAM (junk e-mail) after buying from various vendors (possible privacy policy violation), but so far, none from my Amazon purchases.

UPS and FedEx have pushed back against them in terms of charging the actual cost of shipping (I've hinted at this last year), so now that Amazon is diving into the infrastructure business, it remains to be seen how they can keep the costs under control.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/17 22:36 by cchan006.