Intermodal under pressure

For over two weeks in July, BNSF said it was “metering traffic” from Los Angeles and Long Beach into Chicago – effectively limiting loadings at on-dock and near-dock rail facilities at the ports to better match the rate at which containers are collected in Chicago.

Chicago has become a major choke point for both BNSF and Union Pacific (UP). Containers are collected in Chicago on chassis. Intermodal terminals are set up for wheeled operations and have only a limited ability to stack inbound containers. BNSF said loadings in LA and Long Beach exceeded the out-gate capacity at Logistics Park Chicago, so metering was introduced to manage the traffic flow.

UP suspended intermodal train departures from US West Coast ports to its Global 4 terminal in Joliet, Chicago, for seven days from 18 July. This followed earlier actions when UP started stacking some inbound containers at this terminal, which drayage operators were then unable to collect. The railroad capped storage fees for containers that were stacked and not available for pick-up on a chassis at US$2,450.

The 2021 wildfire season is also challenging the Class I  railroads in both the US and Canada. In Canada, CN and CP services were impacted by a bridge outage and line closures caused by wildfires in British Columbia. This created a backlog of between one and two weeks for containers discharged at Vancouver for CN. In addition, both CN and CP are now subject to a ministerial order requiring train speeds through a large part of Canada to be restricted to 25 kph when the temperature exceeds 33 degC to reduce the risk of sparks from train wheels starting a fire. Rob Reilly, EVP and COO of CN, said this “will be impactful” on service levels this summer.

Wildfires have also impacted BNSF’s operations in Northern California, with services between Stockton and the Oregon state line suspended at the time of writing. BNSF has been deploying its fire train to help dampen down at-risk areas. It has been forced to hold some trains, while others have been rerouted through the central Rocky Mountain route, which increases transit times by several days.

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This complete item is approximately 400 words in length, and appeared in the July 2021 issue of WorldCargo News, on page 11. To access this issue download the PDF here