· Union Pacific Railroad (UP) have reinstated service from the West Coast to the Global IV terminal in Joliet, IL. A controlled amount of volume has been allowed to move from the West Coast to the rail for the first-time staring Sunday July 25, 2021. Pending rail cargo were from locations including Tacoma, Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland.
· The UP shut down service on July 18, 2021, to the rail outside of Chicago to provide employees the needed time to focus on getting the containers moved from the stack at the facility. Employees prior to the shutdown, were not able to focus on the growing stack as inbound volume had taken a higher priority. As a result, storage fees had been growing to large amounts even up to thousands of dollars for stacked cargo. The UP first set a limit charged per container to elevate the high costs incurred by shippers. And ultimately moved to the shutdown inbound service to allow the rail to build up a stock of chassis and to move the stacked containers in a more sufficient and timelier manner.
· Now that the UP service is reopening operations there has been a concern that the back log of containers from the West Coast ports may drive a large volume to re-enter the Joliet yard, and in turn create another instance of chassis not being available at the rail. However, the UP has indicted they are planning continue to receive ocean carrier support to help keep the fluidity of movement at the rail. Ocean carriers are being asked to engage with shippers to outage carrier and merchant haulage to help keep this positive movement at the rail.
Tuesday July 27, 2021
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