Henningsen Cold Storage recently was selected by the Port of Benton to operate a new freight Transload Center in Richland WA. The port teamed up with the state of Washington, the city of Richland, and the Tri-City & Olympia Railroad to build the center at the Horn Rapids Industrial Park off SR 240 on Kingsgate Road.
This center is being built to handle increased demand for shipping products by rail across America. The facility is temperature-controlled and can handle frozen, refrigerated, and dry products from a variety of growers and manufacturers locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.
The Transload Center offers dual rail access (Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway), and daily switching provided by the Tri-City & Olympia Railroad. Pacific Northwest perishable food shippers will now have a location for consolidating rail shipments destined for virtually any market in the continental United States, Canada, or Mexico. Henningsen’s nationwide cold storage network will provide regional destination points for the shipments, and Henningsen Transportation Services will provide both inbound and final-mile delivery of goods being shipped.
Bob Lawyer, Henningsen’s Northwest regional manager, said he is looking forward to helping shippers transport their product to market more efficiently, especially with climbing diesel prices. “Depending on the product shipping, you can fit three to four truckloads on one rail car,” he said.
Although targeting regional food shippers, the new Henningsen Transload Center will be able to handle all kinds of freight that can ship out (or in) of the region by rail.
The new facility will be operational in September 2008.
