When products are transloaded, they’re moved from trucks to rail cars, or vice versa. Often, shippers want to combine the economic advantages of shipping by rail with the flexibility of over-the-road trucking, using affordable rail shipping for the long haul and trucks for final delivery. Transloading allows this to be possible.
Most shippers turn to transloading to lower transportation costs and access the benefits of rail. Typically, shipping by rail is a more affordable shipping option. However, many shippers — or receivers — don’t have tracks at their door. With transloading, it doesn’t matter: all shippers and receivers can benefit from rail.
The rail network stretches across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, so you can ship to distant markets more affordably.
Capacity is rarely an issue for railroads, so rail can accommodate even your largest loads — and will be ready for more when your business grows.
Rail is a 24/7 operation, pushing forward when trucks can’t.
Simply put, rail is a more affordable transportation solution than truck.
Depending on whether the origin or destination has rail service, transloading can happen a few different ways.
For an origin transload, trucks pick up products, which are then transloaded to rail and delivered to the final destination.
Customer:
Non-Rail Served
Origin
Trucking
UPDS Transload
Rail Transit
Receiver:
Rail Served
Swipe to see more
With a destination transload, the origin is rail served, so products are picked up by train, then transloaded to trucks for delivery to the non-rail-served final destination.
Customer:
Rail Served
Rail Transit
UPDS Transload
Destination
Trucking
Receiver:
Non-Rail Served
Swipe to see more
If neither the origin nor the destination is rail served, rail can still be used for the long haul. In a door-to-door transload, trucks pick up products, they are transloaded to trains for the majority of the trip, then they are transloaded back to trucks for final delivery.
Customer:
Non-Rail Served
Origin
Trucking
UPDS Transload
Rail
Transit
UPDS Transload
Destination
Trucking
Receiver:
Non-Rail Served
Swipe to see more
We've shipped more than 600 product types by rail, so chances are, we can ship yours, too.
Our network of more than 400 transloaders can handle just about anything you need shipped. The list of commodities we’ve handled exceeds 600 unique products — and we’re always adding more.
The way a product is transloaded depends on the product type. Our transload network offers many types of devices to safely transload your products. Products can be transloaded by:
For products like lumber, paper and palletized goods
For bulk products like sand, soda ash, grains, flour and sugar
For products like plastic pellets and liquids
For large, heavy products like steel beams, rebar, pipe and wind components
For products like rock, salt and other minerals and aggregates
Many of our transload facilities offer additional services, like: