Railroad conglomerates CSX Transportation of Jacksonville, FL, and Union Pacific Railroad, of Omaha, NE, are making major changes to their interline service to improve transit time and service consistency in hopes of taking more long-haul freight away from trucking companies.
The new services emerge after several months of cooperative research between the two railroads in an effort to reconfigure their service plans to provide a more direct and simple product for interline customers. The improvements are focused at five major freight gateways, where railcars are switched from one rail provider to another, in Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, Memphis and Salem/St. Elmo, IL.
This new interline gateway service is designed to provide smoother, more efficient service, and to open up more capacity to handle additional shipments. Transit time reductions are significant in both short and longer haul lanes and CSX and UP believe these services will complement high-growth markets in Texas, the Ohio Valley and Mexico.
