(BRK.A), (BRK.B)
Beginning Monday, Sept. 12, BNSF Railway (BNSF) will offer intermodal customers a new service option to move freight between the Pacific Northwest and Texas.
Shippers who move commodities and a wide range of consumer goods between Portland, Oregon, or Seattle and Dallas/Fort Worth (AllianceTexas) will now be able to reduce their transit times by up to two days when compared to rail transit time options currently in the marketplace.
The new BNSF service will be comparable in speed to single-driver, over-the-road options.
“We regularly work with our customers to identify and offer new and better transportation solutions to make their supply chains more effective. So we are constantly looking for opportunities to help meet consumer demands and this new service checks all the right boxes for adding efficiency to the marketplace,” said Katie Farmer, group vice president, Consumer Products. “With an economy as dynamic as ours, BNSF is focused on delivering options that strengthen the competitive advantage of U.S. companies through our country’s supply chain.”
This new service option, the first of other new routes that will be announced and rolled out over the next year, comes online just in time for the fall fruit harvest in the Pacific Northwest and will help local businesses get their products to market more efficiently. Faster, more direct routing means agriculture producers can move apples and other produce to southern markets at the peak of freshness.
By leveraging underutilized capacity in the central section of BNSF’s network, this new service option means that BNSF will offer expedited service for customers who wish to have their shipments arrive in Dallas/Fort Worth on the morning of the fifth transit day. From BNSF’s intermodal facility located just north of Fort Worth, customers can reach any of the major Texas or Oklahoma markets with a short-haul trucking option to move containers and trailers for dry or refrigerated goods. Northbound service will also be faster operating with both expedited service arriving on the sixth morning and standard service reaching its destination on the sixth day.
Traffic along the route will run Monday through Friday, in both directions. This route includes a refueling option along the way for refrigerated equipment that carry temperature-sensitive equipment.
© 2016 David Mazor
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.