FORT WORTH, Texas — BNSF Railway and J.B. Hunt have been able to maintain above 95% door-to-door on-time performance for their Quantum premium domestic intermodal service through the fall peak season.
“In October, BNSF achieved record intermodal volumes, a testament to our growing capabilities and commitment to excellence, then ramped immediately into peak season. Throughout this time, we’ve maintained a door-to-door service rate of over 95% for our over-the-road converted traffic through Quantum, a J.B. Hunt and BNSF Service. This level of consistency is no small feat and highlights our unwavering focus on delivering reliable service to our customers when they need it most,” BNSF said in a LinkedIn post today.
The Quantum service, which debuted last year, shaves as much as a day from traditional domestic schedules and takes aim at highly service-sensitive freight that has never moved on rails before. The service — which revives the Quantum name that Santa Fe and J.B. Hunt used when they began their TOFC alliance in 1989 — shoots for on-time performance of 95% or better.
BNSF and J.B. Hunt have not released specific volume figures for Quantum, but BNSF’s LinkedIn post includes a graphic that shows its growth trendline this year.
“We continue to slowly adopt new customers. Nobody who’s come in has walked away from that service, and we see this as a big growth opportunity for both of us as we go into 2025,” BNSF Chief Marketing Officer Tom Williams said at the RailTrends conference last month.
Overall, BNSF’s intermodal volume is up 15% for the fourth quarter, according to its latest weekly carload report. BNSF has been able to improve average velocity and terminal dwell despite overall volume that has topped the 200,000-unit mark for the second week in a row.
“On Saturday, velocity across our Southern Region reached the highest level since early January, and our operating teams achieved this while moving about 40,000 more units across our network,” BNSF said in a Friday network update. “Overall velocity was higher than in November, and our average terminal dwell improved by 9.1% versus the prior week and 16.9% from the previous month, reflecting our strong network momentum.”
After shifting their intermodal business away from BNSF, curious if the intermodal arm of truckload carrier with orange containers has had as much on-time success as Quantum.
Now, let’s see BNSF do that for Amtrak’s Southwest Chief.