The rail service begins in Wallula, Wash., on Union Pacific rails. The refrigerated cars then pass through Oregon before picking up outbound reefer cars from Watco’s East Idaho Railroad at Pocatello, Idaho. The service then highballs for Chicago where it is interchanged to CSX Transportation for shipment to Syracuse, N.Y., and ultimately Rotterdam, N.Y.
The service, dubbed the Cold Connect, and previously known as the Food Train, will see improvements that make rail service more competitive with trucking and a benefit to Idaho potato farmers.
Cold Connect trains currently run three days a week, but Sam Hughes, assistant vice president of food and refrigerated products at UP, says the railroad and its partners are looking into ways to increase that service to four of five trains per week.
According to Hughes, the railroad has seen an 18-percent growth in Idaho potato shipments this year.
To handle the new business, Watco has leased 20 refrigerated cars that will be outfitted with special racks and rollers to join the existing fleet.
The railroad has also plans to expand the rail service to other partners. The specialty food cars are already being rerouted in Chicago and hauled to other destinations on Norfolk Southern.
See the original story online.
CORRECTION: The town where this service begins is Wallula, Wash. An earlier version of this report incorrectly spelled the town’s name. Sept. 18, 2017, 12:37 p.m. Central time.
Here is how the train works Fruit Express begins at Cold Connect in Port Kelly Washington and picks up cars from Railex and the Cold Connect warehouse the also pick up cars from Independent and Stemilt. Once loaded the train heads to Hinkle where it is hooked to train ZBRHK and becomes ZWACYP this train departs every day from Hinkle and heads to Nampa.
In Nampa cars from the Boise Valley Railroad one of WATCO’s subsidiaries are added the train then heads to Minidoka.
In Minidoka cars from three of WATCO’s warehouses are added these cars are loaded at WOW Logistics which is co owned by WATCO and Agropur Cheese and Idaho Milk Products this warehouse is in Jerome.
Next switched is Hannnington Cold Storage which is owned by WATCO and Lamb Weston in Twin Falls Seneca is also switched.
Next switched is the WATCO Warehouse in Burley which services High Desert Milk, Americold, McCain Foods, Lamb Weston Burley, DOT, and Simplot WATCO switches all of them before the train leaves for Rupert.
Once they have all the cars WATCO uses their own engines and interchanges with Eastern Idaho Railroad which they own or use UP power to take the train to their yard in Minidoka where UP picks up the train they also run to Pocatello Yard and the Fruit Express facility via trackage rights.
In Pocatello Yard cars from Idaho Falls and the Aberdeen Branch are added these include cars from the Yellowstone Branch.
Once the train is assembled it leaves Pocatello and heads to Green River where the cars from Delano and Roseville are added.
Once the train is complete it heads to Global 3 where the Americold cars are dropped off and interchanged to Burlington Junction Railroad and BNSF.
The train then leaves Global 3 and eastbound Americold cars are picked up and the train stops at Bar Yard in Chicago where train IG3AH terminates and is interchanged to CSX Transport the Fruit Express cars are interchanged to CSX Transport and the WATCO cars are picked up by BRC and are taken to Ashwood Yard.
At Ashwood NS picks up the train and takes it Elkhart their main intermodal terminal where they interchange with BNSF.
NS picks up the UPS trailers and any BNSF cars and the train departs Chicago for Disher where the McCain cars are dropped off.
The train then heads to Bethlehem Pennsylvania where it is terminated when the consist is ready with back hauls the reverse is done and the train returns to Burley and the Fruit Express returns to Port Kelly and Delano.
I remember some time ago I was watching a program where someone designed paint that once applied could be washed off with soap and water.
Here in Rotterdam the produce facilty at the start was called railex corp. Then a couple of years later Union Pacific purchased the facilty and took control all together , I watch the produce exp.which come in and out of the Rotterdam industrial park several times a week . The only thing is every produce reefer has graffiti on it front to back and that’s every train I see ,looks disgusting and makes the railroad in my eyes look bad , they need to fix this problem.
Just like the old days Fruit Express is back
That’s good news there are three WATCO warehouses in Southern Idaho that are vacant and one at Glenn’s Ferry also vacant UP is doing a good thing it is time to reopen them and get the fruit out of Idaho to market.
Should be Wallula, Washington in Walla Walla County
@Christophe it appears to me that produce regardless of origin bound for the Rotterdam transload will operate on CSX. And that bound for another unspecified location or locations plural will be interchanged to NS.
Interesting that the potatos are going to NS destinations when CSX serves more produce warehouses in the northeast.
Do click through to the original story. Very informative.
I like the short line involvement. There’s a fair amount of loose car gathering in the Idaho potato region and a short line is just better organized to execute that profitably at lower cost/price.
I wonder whether backhauls of meat from the Midwest bound for California or the PNW would harm the cycle time for these expensive reefers.
I also wonder whether some of these reefer blocks can be combined with existing Z trains at Lathrop (for the Delano origin) and SLC (for the PNW and Idaho origins). But if there’s enough traffic for a 5 days/week dedicated train this is less an issue, but could be a way to up the frequency.
Do click through to the original story.