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Burlington Northern Santa Fe recently teamed with MHF Logistical Solutions, a hazardous-waste transportation company, to create a marketing strategy for transporting liquid waste in 55-gallon drums in MHF’s privately owned, cushion-equipped box cars.
Currently, 99.9 percent of packaged-liquid hazardous waste is transported over the road because those moves require special blocking and bracing to safely travel in a box car, making rail moves inefficient and expensive compared with truck shipments.
But MFH's and BNSF's recently developed liquid-waste transportation technology will make rail moves more appealing to shippers, said Dave Hallberg, BNSF assistant vice president, sales-industrial products, in a statement prepared March 27.
Working with BNSF’s marketing and resource protection solutions teams, MHF in late 2001 purchased 15 60-foot, 100-ton box cars and installed steel floors, drain pans on each door side, and a winch system with
Association of American Railroads-approved four-inch polyester web straps and portable bulkheads.
So far, BNSF has moved several shipments in the specialty box cars, but both companies plan to increase moves as a result of the new marketing campaign; railroad and MHF officials believe about 1.4 million drums of hazardous liquids annually shipped over the road could be diverted to rail.