Originally Posted by
jackal
Only thing I'd mention about the above is that, unless contracts have been renegotiated in the last year (I haven't paid attention since then), UPS uses rail transport heavily while FedEx chooses to use team-driven trucks. It's the rare case, if ever, when FedEx goods travel by rail. UPS, in contrast, is one of the largest customers of the rail industry. Ultra-high-priority trains like the ZLACWSP ("hot," high-priority Z train from Los Angeles, California to Willow SPrings, IL, near UPS's giant CACH (Chicago Area Consolidated Hub) on the historic and important AT&SF Transcon route paralleling I-40 and the reverse ZWSPLAC) are virtually dedicated to UPS's important ground operation and are scheduled precisely to depart from and arrive at the given sorting hubs just in time for their respective sort operations. Check out this thread for some potentially interesting info from the train nuts over at TrainOrders:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,185021
According to a UPS official, UPS will try to move goods moving more than 700 miles away by rail. Shorter movements are generally better done by truck.
More cool info about how UPS works with CACH here:
http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=a&id=549
And an interesting article about the modern state of intermodal freight transport:
http://www.worldtrademag.com/Article...00000000726114
Thanks for the links. Some interesting reads there. I worked for UPS as a loader back in high school at the Chantilly, VA facility. For part of my time there each night, I loaded most of two 24 foot rail trailers bound for CACH as well as about a quarter of a 50 foot trailer bound for LA. If I remember correctly these trailers along with a bunch of other non rail ones we loaded went to Burtonsville, MD Hub to be filled some. From there they would more before getting loaded on a train in case rail trailers or driven else where in the case of road trailers.
For anyone that is curious as they are passing by UPS semi, you can tell the difference between a rail trailer and road trailer. The rail trailer has a flat bottom while the road trailer has a pit in it. The road trailers were far easier to load as they have rollers built in and don't require a step stool to load all the way the ceiling, unlike rail trailers.
UPS was big on promoting from within and one the things they always benefits brought up about driving the 18 wheelers for them was that the driver never overnighted anywhere. Always out and back on the same shift. Hence the reason why you rarely see a UPS semi with a sleeper cab, where as a lot of Fedex Ground semis do. Without there heavy use rails they probably wouldn't be able to effectively offer this benefit.