Eastern Railroad Discussion > Q: Do NS container drayers use CSX chassis & vice versa?

As I was driving east up I-84 in NE Connecticut a couple of days back, I overtook a UPS cab pulling a container on a NS chassis that I initially guessed was a UPS container grounded at New Jersey bound for eastern Massachusetts (there's a good-sized UPS depot just east of Worcester). NS does not haul UPS trailers or containers into Ayer (its only New England IM pad) via its Pan Am Southern partnership but CSX does a brisk UPS business at its Worcester IM pad. So I was wondering if perhaps the UPS cab was actually using a NS chassis to haul a container to the CSX IM pad. 

So my question is, like freight cars, are container chassis used interchangebly by RRs for draying their shippers' containers? Thanks.

In markets serviced by both NS and CSX, the chassis are usually interchangable.  In Chicago, the chassis can be used at CSX, NS, UP, CN, and CP for the EMP and UMX programs.

A chassis is a chassis. When I spent a lot of time in Worcester, I would see lots of different chassis come out of there, including NS and BNSF chassis. 

I wonder if they are all owned by TTX in reality and thus they can be used anywhere....

No and yes. The chassis is owned by NS proper, but they do float around sometimes. When I was there, NS put in a project that tracked chassis locations and usage. 


engineerinvirginia Wrote:
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> I wonder if they are all owned by TTX in reality
> and thus they can be used anywhere....

 I would guess that most chassis are owned and managed by Flexi-Van Leasing, Trac Intermodal or Transamerica Leasing and then use various railroad or shipping company reporting marks.

While I was at CSX Intermodal in Springfield, we'd put UPS boxes on any pool chassis, TSXZ and TSFZ, primarily.  We didn't get many NS owned NSFZ and NSPZ chassis, but we almost always has 3-5 on the property, and we treated them like pool chassis.  Schnieder boxes went on pool chassis as well until they came up with their own private chassis shortly after I retired in 2015.  Pacer had their private chassis, too, but those dwindled once UMAX was created and all the PATU boxes and most PACUs were relettered into the UMXU series which got pool chassis.  We'd see an occassional UPHZ (UP owned) chassis every now and then as well and treated those, too, as pool chassis.  The only chassis we didn't see were those of JB Hunt as they primarily used NS for their loads and they were incompatible with 'standard' pool chassis...a narrow tunnel or something like that.  JBHU boxes never came to Springfield while I was there 2008-2015.  I started seeing a couple NS boxes per week come in on the train the last year I was there, and they worked fine on pool chassis.  I'll bet the interline cross-billing on those must have been fun!

BRAtkinson Wrote:
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> While I was at CSX Intermodal in Springfield, we'd
> put UPS boxes on any pool chassis, TSXZ and TSFZ,
> primarily.  We didn't get many NS owned NSFZ and
> NSPZ chassis, but we almost always has 3-5 on the
> property, and we treated them like pool chassis. 
> Schnieder boxes went on pool chassis as well until
> they came up with their own private chassis
> shortly after I retired in 2015.  Pacer had their
> private chassis, too, but those dwindled once UMAX
> was created and all the PATU boxes and most PACUs
> were relettered into the UMXU series which got
> pool chassis.  We'd see an occassional UPHZ (UP
> owned) chassis every now and then as well and
> treated those, too, as pool chassis.  The only
> chassis we didn't see were those of JB Hunt as
> they primarily used NS for their loads and they
> were incompatible with 'standard' pool chassis...a
> narrow tunnel or something like that.  JBHU boxes
> never came to Springfield while I was there
> 2008-2015.  I started seeing a couple NS boxes
> per week come in on the train the last year I was
> there, and they worked fine on pool chassis. 
> I'll bet the interline cross-billing on those must
> have been fun!

If cross billing is regular I bet they have agreements for so much money a month and so much usage for that amount.