Chicago Container chassis shortage

No foolin'. 20 years ago, I remember stacks of chassis'. What happened to them all? Besides, if I was going to stay with intermodal, I was going to get my own spread axle chassis, and just do lifts. Looking for a decent chassis was the worst part of the job.

 

That is because the container is off loaded onto chassis. Most container haulers have their own .

 

We have over 600 on lease and are running so tight that we have a bunch of rentals too. NY was so tight that 2 of our big customers leased a batch of their own and turned them over to us to make sure we can pre-pull their stuff. Some are sitting a month or longer and my boss under a lot of pressure.

 

Thise late charges pileup.

 

It's happening all over, every ramp has a shortage of chassis. Back in June, every free, road worthy chassis was at the UP ramp, there was still 200 stacked/grounded loads. They put out a call today for every available pool chassis as well, there's 50 cans headed for grounding, another 100 groundings possible this weekend with the inbound trains.

 

if they pay us, we will come

 

When one of your largest customers calls saying someone screwed up and sent all the containers for distribution east of the Mississippi to the NY/NJ port instead of sending a good part to long beach for rail transport to the warehouses scattered around the mid west and they want us to pre-pull and sit on 300 cans, you do it.

Re-vamp all of your drop lots, haul in a few more 'jersey' barriers and hire more security and a few porta-Johns for the extra guards...oh yeah and a case of hair die for the bookkeeper's new grey hairs.

The up-side was their DC was stuffed and we gladly started to de-van boxes and shrink wrap shipments they couldn't fit/handle helping them clear out the logjam. Made it worth it to almost destroy one's cash flow until this all get's invoiced.

 

You should have a gratefully and loyal customer..

 

We do, several...

new big box DC for one of the popular on-line marketers that does not start with an A [we do them too] started asking their neighbors about carrier choices after the one the originally chose wasn't providing the expected service.

Told to call my boss, we got the "OK we will give you a try despite the higher cost".

Original guy is long gone, we are still there...

next door customer was using our local LTL guys and was struggling to get their imports in as needed, LTL brought in the boss and our port trucks now put tomorrow's deliveries against the doors by two today...

Lost a long term customer, parent corp wanted a 'nationwide' carrier. Six months later we are back...