Western Railroad Discussion > ZLCLT Question

There was no UP Lathrop to LA Z train today, shown as annulled yet both terminals are shown as open
(LT at 0600) would any of you inside connected people have any insight on this?

Out 

callum_out Wrote:
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> There was no UP Lathrop to LA Z train today, shown
> as annulled yet both terminals are shown as open
> (LT at 0600) would any of you inside connected
> people have any insight on this?
>
> Out 

Middle of the holiday weekend?

There were over a dozen IM/Z trains annulled today for the holiday, including the ZLCLT.

I should have added that the ZLTG2, IOANP, INPOA, ILTLB, and ZG2LT should all be calling on Lathrop today. Similarly, the ZLCG2, ZG2LC, and ZLCTM are all showing as running in or out of LATC.

Even if the trains aren't running they may keep a terminal open for certain customers to still pickup or drop off their containers. Train schedule isn't everything....

The Lsthrop ran on Thanksgiving Day but not the day after, makes you think that yesterday's train was built on
Wednesday. You wonder with the early ramp times when this "expedited traffic" actually gets put together. UP
quotes a schedule for the customer to Lathrop but is that train time or total freight FOB time? 

Out 

I always thought that for "premium" service that means drop your box off before published cutoff time and it's guaranteed to get there by published available time or there might be penalties to the carrier.   I suspect the needs of UPS play a big role in which trains run or don't during a holiday period.

callum_out Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Lsthrop ran on Thanksgiving Day but not the
> day after, makes you think that yesterday's train
> was built on
> Wednesday. You wonder with the early ramp times
> when this "expedited traffic" actually gets put
> together. UP
> quotes a schedule for the customer to Lathrop but
> is that train time or total freight FOB time? 
>
> Out 

The customers are quoted an "availability time" (pickup) and a "ramp cut off time" (drop off) for their trailers and containers (train arrival and departure times are irrelevant to the customer).

As for the question on "yesterday's train was built on Wednesday", that's usually partly true.  For the "premium" intermodal Z-trains on both the BNSF and UP, one will notice that much of the time, a day's train is scheduled to depart in the early mornings of the following days.  For example, on the BNSF at Portland and South Seattle, the Z-trains are scheduled to depart around 5am on the following mornings.  This is to allow more time for the day's intermodal business to get to the ramps and loaded, but mainly because UPS is not done with their regional sorting of packages until the early morning hours, and then the trailers/containers still have to be drayaged to the ramps.  Usually, there's a cutoff time for most customers of around 3am, but UPS will usually have a ramp cut off time of like 4:15am, just before the scheduled departure (a few intermodal cars are reserved to be available for these last minute loads on the departing train's loading track, which is why one might often see an empty or partially UPS loaded spine or stack car on the rear of a train).

Another interesting quirk is whether there are "non-business days" (ie weekends, holidays, etc) occurring while that train is in-transit to its destination.  This give a lot of added padding to even a hot Z-train, which is why the Z trains on the BNSF and UP tend to run at a different time of day  when their departure days are toward the ends of the weeks.  BNSF usually assigns these trains a "colder" number, like a "7" ("1" is the hottest):  So for example, Tues and Wed 5am departures of the ZPTLCHC from Portland are a ZPTLCHC4 (medium hot) because they are scheduled into Chicago Thur and Fri respectively (ie no padding), where the ZPTLCHC departures on Thur - Sun are a ZPTLCHC7 (ie the "coldest" Z trains - weekend padding).  On the UP out of Portland, the ZBRG2 trains are the hot, no-padding trains that depart on Tue and Wed, so you'll see them get out of Portland about 5-6am (like on the BNSF), but the ZBRG2B trains are the weekend padding trains (Thu-Mon (I think UP's Portland Z's are seven days a week?)), so they aren't usually out of Portland until around noon.  It all depends on how much transit time padding are in the quoted availability times to the customer.

Another thing I speculate that happens is what kind of competition there is in the markets.  For example, BNSF has the fastest transit times from the Puget Sound region to Chicago (less miles to travel than UP has), so BNSF is the only one that offers "premium" intermodal service out of the Puget Sound region (UP only offers their "I" standard intermodal service); so the BNSF only offers 5-days a week Z trains service in this corridor (Tu-Sa 5am departures); Sa and Su service is "Q" train service only.  However, out of Portland, the BNSF and UP Portland -Chicago routes are virtually identical, so there is more competition out of that market.  BNSF actually offers a 6-days a week Z-train service out of there (Tu-Su 5am departures), I suspect largely because UP (I think) offers 7-days a week premium service out of Portland.  This all happens even though the Puget Sound region is a larger market.  Again, speculation on my part.

Good insight and pretty much along my lines of thinking. The line between premium and
standard on the UP gets blurred on many days though I'm sure in most cases the train
leaves with good intent.

Out 

callum_out Wrote:
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> Good insight and pretty much along my lines of
> thinking. The line between premium and
> standard on the UP gets blurred on many days
> though I'm sure in most cases the train
> leaves with good intent.
>
> Out 

I've often wondered how much of the business on a railroads' premium service trains are of the customers that are paying for the premium service, and how much of the business on that train is no-premium paid customers who's business is just there to "fill the train out" to capacity.