4 ms·
Part of the problem is with BNSF, UP & the other major long haul rail lines, there is no good aggregator for those looking to ship a few pallets of goods from C
by StudentStuff 8y ago
Part of the problem is with BNSF, UP & the other major long haul rail lines, there is no good aggregator for those looking to ship a few pallets of goods from California to Seattle, and the railroad is happy to set high minimums which make long distance trucking viable. Its ultimately quite silly, I really do think an Uber for Railroad shipping which partnered with the local railroads (that are desperate for revenue & work for cheap) and long haul railroads could effectively shrink the need for long haul trucking.
- HarryHirsch 8y agoUber for railroad shipping? LCL (Less-than-container-load) freight forwarding has been an industry since God-knows-when, and you'd think this includes intermodal. You learn all this when you've done a few international moves.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- shiftpgdn 8y agoIf you've done an international move surely you saw how horribly the industry is run. It's ripe for "disruption." Most of the pages of companies doing the work look straight out of 2004.
- HarryHirsch 8y agoTo be honest, I can't complain about the state of the industry. You find someone (through recommendations), they give you a quote, you drop off the goods, and the stuff arrives 6 weeks later. It's miraculous, there must be so much informal knowledge to make it all work. The disruption is these "moving pods". They are more expensive, but they are well advertised, and one fears that the established small players will be driven out of business.
- toasterlovin 8y agoThere is a YC company doing this: Flexport.
- HarryHirsch 8y agoTheir website is full of fluff, and you have to sign up for an account. With your average freight forwarder you just pick up the phone for a quote, and if the quote is outside their area of expertise they'll refer you to someone who can perform. What is their niche, exactly?
- toasterlovin 8y agoTheir "niche" is that you can actually track your shipments on their website, rather than having to harass your dinosaur freight forwarder via phone & email and hope that they deign to get back to you. Oh, and you can also request quotes via their website! Seriously, though, you should give them a shot. They were a game changer for a former employer. And there's a phone number in the website footer.
- skookumchuck 8y agoJust put the truck on the railroad flatcar.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoThere is an enormous existing market for this. It's called intermodal transport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_freight_transport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_freight_transport
- skookumchuck 8y agoGiven the interstates are clogged with long haul trucks, it obviously isn't nearly enormous enough.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- lopmotr 8y agoIs it the trucks clogging them or everyone else? Maybe if human travelers flew instead of driving, then there would be space for the trucks.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cimmanom 8y agoOr if the humans took rail?
- toomuchtodo 8y agoIncentives and all that. Have to raise heavy truck highway taxes if you want to push a lot of that freight onto the rail backbone.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
- analognoise 8y agoRailroads are only inexpensive because they demand those minimums to reduce or eliminate their touch labor costs. If they removed those minimums, the price would go up substantially - your model doesn't include that cost on the train side, it would incur it on you as a shipping aggregator, making your costs uncompetitive. Just a guess, I haven't done an analysis.