Feb.15--US west coast port congestion has resulted in year-on-year decline in Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railways eastbound train counts as much as 20 to 30 trains each carrying 250 containers a week.
What's more, they are not being processed through the supply chain, BNSF vice president Katie Farmer told the US Senate Commerce subcommittee, reported Newark's Journal of Commerce.
BNSF halved the number of weekly services connecting to west coast ports to 30 after marine terminal operators suspended vessel work last weekend, she said.
BNSF's total intermodal volume is down eight per cent year-to-date compared to the same period in 2014, mostly because of falling international intermodal volumes.
"BNSF has taken numerous actions to service its customers and ensure the fluidity of our network in the face of these challenges including establishing controls at our intermodal facilities and equipment management," Ms Farmer said.
Truckers have also been hit as they are unable to move containers from the precincts of the port so contents can be stuffed into 53-foot domestic equipment, she said.
BNSF has also had to turn away westbound ocean containers because it has less international intermodal capacity.
"If you can't get the boxes off the west coast into the interior, then I don't have the capacity to load the boxes back," Ms Farmer said.
She told the senators that BNSF has been forced to park locomotives, slowing network fluidity, just as BNSF services are showing signs of improvement after a harsh 2013-2014 winter.
The Union Pacific has also lost international volume from congestion, Eric Butler, UP vice president of marketing and sales, told investors during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call.
But UP appears not to have suffered as badly as its archrival because its total intermodal volume year-to-date is only down three per cent from the same period in 2014.
(Source:shippingazette)