Coal trains kill Cold Trains: Fruit delivery service shuts down as rail congestion heats up
Congestion from coal and oil trains seems to be the key factor forcing closure of a prominent express rail service that carries Washington fruit and produce to East Coast markets.
Cold Train on Thursday announced it is shutting down its express service from Quincy, Wash. because restrictions in the BNSF Railway schedule changed delivery guarantees from three days to six days.
“BNSF’s business decision to direct its resources away from Cold Train resulted in millions of dollars in operating losses and millions of dollars in capital investment losses, both of which are simply unsustainable,” said a Cold Train release.
The release connected the closure directly to coal and oil shipments by BNSF Rail.
“The announcement by Cold Train follows a number of scheduling issues on BNSF Railway’s Northern Corridor line that have been occurring with BNSF beginning late last fall because of increased rail congestion as result of a surge of oil and coal shipments on the Northern Corridor line,” it said. “In fact, from November of 2013 to April of 2014, BNSF’s on-time percentage dramatically dropped from an average of over 90 percent to less than 5 percent.”
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