Intermodal Companies (Rails, not PORTS)

Thanks Ebola, it's all coming back to me now (shiver). I came out of Conrail 63rd with an empty, and when I got to my loading point in Wis. I noticed what looked like a bullet hole in the side that wasn't there when I picked it up. I had my trailer broken into a couple of times on 63rd. and got to the point where I'd slow down at the stoplights, and if no one was coming, I'd keep rolling. Another one of our drivers was at a light behind another 18, some bro's broke into the trailer in front of him, he rolled ahead gently and pinned one of the guys in between his truck and the trailer and called the cops. My last load, I was supposed to pick up a van at the Grand Trunk (we called it Grand Funk), load of peat moss in bags, found it, noticed there were 4 dents in the bottom of the trailer( where the lift picked it up) Backed under it, felt heavy, my suspension air gauge read 95 lbs. (62 lbs. was 34K).I figured there must have been between 50-60K in the trailer. Pulled the pin, gently pulled away, drove home bobtail, and sold my truck later that month. While I miss the old Pete(below) I don't miss the rail yards.

 

Come Nov. 17th, I'll have 17 yrs hauling containers out of BNSF and UPRR in Denver, with the occasional trip to Houston, the money is there as are the hours. I'm a company driver, have thought about buying my own, but just don't want to deal with the pains of the paperwork. O/O's can make good money if leased or contracted to the right company. In our area there are 7 primary intermodal carriers, we are the only one that requires our O/O to have his own insurance and authority, but he runs the rails and depots under our SCAC code. The others, they are all leased drivers, the pay difference is pretty large, and it often shows in how they care for their tractors. While we pay our O/O 95% of total, the others are getting 72% to 77%. Waiting for harvest to get into full swing, it's picking up, then come Oct. the outbound grain loads will start, beans, millet, sunflower and popcorn will be the big stuff from Oct. till Feb., lots of long 12 hr days, starting at 3 am, picking up 45K of whichever, back to the ramp, get an empty for the next day. If it goes like last year, the boss will keep three trucks in town every day for the local stuff in the morning, while 4 or 5 of us will be out of town getting grain loads in the morning, then getting empties for the next day, and 2 or 3 hours of local to round out the day.

Biggest issue with the rails is the lack of repair, although they are getting better about it. Trying to get tire replaced/repaired is akin to pulling teeth. Recently had a UPRR chassis that needed three tires (any of them would have been an OOS violation), and 4 lights. They replaced the lights, but only two of the tires. Went round and round about the third, mechanic agreed it needed replaced, took a pic. and emailed it to his guy that pays the bills, they refused it. 18 miles later, it blew out. 3 hrs on the side of the road waiting for road service, ended up taking it to our yard for a reschedule as we missed our appt. the amount of 10.00x20's still out there is amazing. Whether is the steamship chassis or the old Pacer 53' chassis still floating around. Getting harder to find shops to replace them too, and the age of some of the carcasses is hysterical. Recently pulled one that the carcass was 17 yrs old, had two retread stamps, was so badly dry rotted that you could see belts, railroad guy told my boss it was still good. We took pics of it, brought it to our yard, slapped a different tire on, picked up the load, 46,700lbs of millet, came back to our yard, put it back on, took it back to the rail.

This new automation thing that the UP has, while it has it's good points, it's royal PITA, and when the hostlers are too lazy to put the location info into the computer, that make sit even worse. My boss checks online the location of every load at the UP before he dispatches us, about 60% of the time it's correct.

The weights on some of these international loads are hilarious though. Had one a few years back, the claimed it was 44,500 lbs. Backed under it, cranked up the gear, airbags stayed bottomed out. Something's fishy, looked at my gauge, 100 psi. 64 psi is 36K. Called dispatch, he said carefully take it to the scale. Scaled at 110,000 lbs. Slowly took it to the yard, opened the doors, some type of bags of sand, they double stacked them on the nose to halfway.

The other issue with the railroad is the lying S.O.B. that is the inspector. He refuses loads all the time for lack of block/brace, then lies about the operations of the railroad. Confronted him one day about it, said if they would stop humping trains at 30 mph, they wouldn't have so much load shift. He said they are only allowed to hump at 6 mph. Friend is a Denver cop, his favorite spot to run radar is right by one of the area where they hump trains. He's clocked them at 25 mph many times. Nephew is the receiving manager for a warehouse, they get boxcars everyday with shifted freight, broken airbags, broken/shifted bulkheads, railroad claims improper loading, more like abuse by the railroad.

 

great thread i work for ns here in elizabeth nj im a yard jockey driver. i use to work dispatcher for a company hauling cans out of port newark here in nj. my father was a o\o he made good money but a lot was heavy frozen foods from over seas. the o\o that come into my work place say the pay is alright. we get a lot of jb hunt hub emhu etc. its a union job good benefits but the trains have been coming so later from chicago. they tell us theres work being done on the rail road?? any one know anything bout this?

 

You get use to it after a while. You start being able to do process of elimination pretty easily. What kind of container is it? Reefer or normal Container? Whose Container is it (JB Hunt, EMHU, HUB, etc.)? How old is the container...is it a van container or a steel box container (Older containers where van newer containers steel)? You can drive around 20-25 mph and find your container pretty quickly after you've searched for containers a few hundred times...that is if you make sure the container is at Main Gate or Duckville. If you don't check to see where it is at in the Harrisburg rail yard than yeah you can spend an hour looking for it.

 

Here is the number for Norfolk Southern 1-800-497-2919

To find out where your container is when listening to the promp say "dispatch" for the first option, after that you will be asked if you want billing status or lot location. Your going to say "lot location". After that your going to be asked for your equipment ID number to find out where your container is. If your container is a JB Hunt container say "JBHU 222222" (yes that is a real container number that I picked up before) when saying the number don't say just "222222" you will need to give the numbers as well so you would say "JBHU 222222" and then it the automated service will tell you where your container is. It will tell you the rail yard the container is at first then where it is dropped in that rail yard. Now sometimes the rail yard is behind in inventorying the rail yard so when calling the number you might get message saying the container has "been mounted but not been grounded".

That means the container is off the train and is somewhere in main gate at Harrisburg and you are going to have to go looking for it. If you get a message saying the container is at TS row 864 or AUX that means the container is in duckville in Harrisburg PA. If the message saying "the container has not been grounded" that means it's still on the train. The main gate entrance for Harrisburg PA intermodal rail yard is by the one closest to the bridge. The gate for Duckville is the one closest to the farmshow complex.

 

Hi Sick, well, I don't know about work being done on the rail, it's possible, but when I hauled those cans in Chicago, these operators worked like turtles on Valium, and it was a huge ordeal to get a lift. They would drive right by you, even though, you were sitting with an empty chassis next to a container, pretty obvious what you wanted. It got to the point, where I would literally get out of the truck and stand in their way and point, then they would do the lift. Jerks. One of the reasons I quit doing that. Funny, the union trucks didn't have near as much trouble.

 

If you have a hard time or don't like to speaking to those automated operators (or just don't want to), (I call the NS operator, Otto), you can press the keypad instead. Explaining it makes it sound more complicated than it really is, so here goes.

When Otto lists the choices of what to say, for example, "Tracing, Dispatch, Billing, and Storage", the key presses would be 1, 2, 3, or 4, respectively. The same applies further into the menu you go.
To enter a box number, you enter the first letter then the number, using JBHU212345. Looking at your phone the 'J' is the 5, so you would enter 5212345. Or 4678345 for HUBU678345

Sometimes Otto will say "I didn't hear anything", if so, be a little quicker entering that first keypress. He sounds like a nice guy but can be a little impatient.

What's it mean when Otto says....
...TS## that means the box is Track Side. Depending on your yard, you may be able to drive over to it and pick it up. Some yards, like Charlotte, NC do NOT want you driving trackside (Oops! on my part); Chicago, they don't care, just don't be in the way.
If your box is not on the tracks, it is in "no man's land" (in transit between the train and the final parking spot) and you have to find it. Look to see where the hostlers are taking the boxes as a start.
Or worse, your box is still on the train (and of course, in the bottom position). In Chicago, I grab a chassis and park at it. They will see you and radio in for you to be hot picked, or sometimes they won't.
... just the yard but no location (TS or Lot), that means the box is at the rail but the train hasn't been parked or is not in a position to be unloaded. It can be a while before they get to unloading it.***
... "I have no lot location for XXXXX". It can mean one of two things. The train is not in yet or the box is in transit between the tracks and its final parking spot. ***

*** At that point, you would press 3 to start over, press 1 or say "Tracing", say or enter your box initial and number. It will give the last reported location on the box's journey. For example, one location before 47th Chicago is the "TB or TV Scanner", either way, it tells me the train is NOT at the yard.

Another feature of Otto is Billing. After you get loaded and have sent your information, call Otto and select Billing, he will tell you that billing has been received and where to take the box and where the final destination ramp is. He'll say something like, "ABCU234567 has been billed from Chicago, IL for delivery to Harrisburg, PA. It can be dropped off at Chicago 47th". If billing has not been received, he'll say, "Billing has not been received for equipment 234567. This unit cannot be dropped off at a Norfolk Southern facility" and I then hang up and call my dispatcher.

 

The number for BNSF is 888 428 2673, option 1, then 2, and choose from Billing Status or Lot Location.

Like Otto above, the info is very similar. If only a ramp location but no lot location is given means the box isn't there. This is helpful when hunting empties. Or the train is at the ramp but not in a position of being unloaded.

If the box is trackside or still on the train, it will say Lot then the track number, "ABCU234567 is in Cicero, IL, Lot 802" meaning track 802. So know your tracks or ask for a map. Some yards will have signs or pavement markings for the tracks, some won't.

If the lot location gives the departure ramp, like "South Seattle, WA", it means the train isn't even in.