Western perishable-goods shipments now can ride the Express Lane all the way to the City of Brotherly Love. Union Pacific Railroad and CSX Transportation Aug. 6 added Philadelphia as a destination for their joint guaranteed Express Lane perishable-goods service.
Using Express Lane, western shippers can guarantee the transit time of freight moving from California's San Joaquin Valley, Idaho and selected points in Washington and Oregon, to New York City, Boston, Atlanta, central Florida and Philadelphia. UP and CSXT will reimburse shippers a portion of the freight charge for late-arriving perishable-goods shipments.
Express Lane is designed to combine UP's refrigerated box-car fleet and West Coast produce-shipper access with CSXT's service to large eastern consumer markets, using operational plans aimed at avoiding delays usually associated with interchanging traffic between two large carriers.
Since starting the service in April 2000, the Class Is' perishable shipments have increased nearly 20 percent.
To enhance Express Lane service, UP this year plans to spend $44 million adding 660 state-of-the-art refrigerated rail cars to its refrigerated fleet of 5,500 cars.
Source: Progressive Railroading Daily News
