Western Railroad Discussion > Cool Port Oakland

The new Cool Port facility in Oakland had its ribbon-cutting ceremony last Thursday.  My firm has been involved with the project since it started quite a few years ago. The program is to receive roughly 36 reefers per day of export beef, pork and poultry.  No telling what the tariff situation will do to this.  So far only limited individual reefers have been coming in, but this should ramp up within the next few months.  A lot will depend on UP's service.  What that means, including how PSR affects this, is anybody's guess.  Links:

https://www.dreisbach.com/logistics/facilities/coolport-oakland/

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181101005359/en/Lineage-Logistics-Dreisbach-Enterprises-Open-Lineage-Cool

And, although few checked it out, UP was kind enough to wash a relatively new (built in July of this year) loco. The 3 reefers, located much closer to the attendees, were covered with graffiti. 

Bruce

 

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StStephen Wrote:
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> A lot
> will depend on UP's service.  What that means,
> including how PSR affects this, is anybody's
> guess.  

Good luck.

This is very interesting--36 reefers per day??  It looks like each track can hold 9 cars, so we're talking 4 tracks, 9 cars deep, and that's assuming all the cars get "connected" with ramp plates so the fork lifts can drive thru 3 reefers to get to the 4th car.  So far, most of the old reefer sheds in West Oakland (I remember 4 being in business) only went 2 cars across.

I believe a Chinese company bought a US pork producer (SMITHFIELD??) to produce and export pork to China.  This could be big business, long-term.  Will be very interesting to watch and see what happens.

And in this case, this is a great "green" transporation solution--door to door, all-rail, no trucks.  That's the best way.

There is another cross-dock out of the picture on the left, so there are a total of 18 loading doors.  The two tracks in the middle are for staging.  So a total of 36 cars can be between the cross-docks, and a small "yard" to the southeast as part of the connector to UP's ramp allows for switching and more staging if necessary. Running through the cars anymore is becoming less likely due to food safety regulations and maintaining the "cold chain".  There is a new Trackmobile to handle the switching once UP brings in the cars, manned by Dreisbach employees.

Each dock door was set up to be 18" further apart than UP's largest reefer. They want to uncouple every car so that spotting at each door is "spot on". We had proposed spacing doors on BNSF's largest cars, but the decision was to go with UP's latest. 

The connection to Unicold was originally through the OIG by a UP crew working around the perimeter tracks of OIG closest to Middle Harbor Road. This has been reconfigured so Unicold and Lineage/Dreisbach are on a connection off of the UP ramp, crossing over Maritime.  If you go into Google Maps (not Google Earth) you should first get the older aerial that shows is through OIG.  Click on "Globe" in the left pull-down menu and the newer aerial should show the new connection under construction as well as the new "perimeter" track around the ramp.

Bruce  

Thanks for including some of the decisions that have to be made when designing a project.  A lot of track involved here.

mapboy