(The following story by John D. Boyd appeared on the Journal of Commerce website on April 6, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — BNSF is taking advantage of the slack in freight volume this year to cut time off its intermodal services but saying those improvements will outlast the downturn.
The largest intermodal railroad in North America said it reduced average trip time for domestic and international box traffic by 12 hours in the first quarter, while some long-distance lanes sliced away up to 20 hours.
In line with the time savings, BNSF said that it and intermodal partners have worked together to achieve on-time, door-to-door deliveries 99 percent of the time.
Steve Branscum, BNSF group vice president for consumer products, told Journal of Commerce the improved performance goes well beyond running trains faster as the recession allows them to target fewer loads more effectively.
“Certainly that has helped us,” he said, “but we don’t believe for a second that has been enough” to produce the kind of improvements BNSF is reporting. He said those faster transits reflect long-term investments and revamped procedures that boost productivity.
“We’re particularly convinced we can sustain the gains when volumes pick back up,” Branscum said.
Some of its intermodal trains these days “may be slightly shorter” because they are moving with fewer containers or trailers, Branscum said, but that is not happening for all transits. For instance, he said BNSF is running more trains that are 10,000 feet or longer, packing additional cargo into a single transit.
BNSF has been putting lots of money both into construction projects that benefit intermodal such as double-tracking most of its southern trans-continental route, and buying more and better locomotives. “Better rail with better engines played a large role in improving efficiency,” the company said.
It has also been upgrading some intermodal yards, by using technology changes to speed truck drivers through the terminal gates to get their loads and move down the road.