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Transloading combines the best of both the truck and rail modes. For outbound movement of cargo, a transloader, working with your railroad marketing representative, will obtain movement rates and order the type of railcars you need to move your product from the appropriate source. Anacostia railroads are all physically connected to the North American rail network and electronically connected to the transportation providers within the network. When your railcars have been loaded, the transloader will submit an electronic rail bill of lading to the transportation providers, which contains all necessary movement information for shipment of the railcars, such as rail origin, rail destination, invoice party, and shipper and consignee contact information. Upon receipt of a “loaded and released” message for your railcars from the transloader, the serving railroad will pick up the railcars at the transload facility. Online tracing information will be available throughout the cars’ journey, telling you (or the transloader on your behalf) current location and ETA to destination.
For inbound movement of railcars, your destination transloader and railroad marketing representative will work with the shipper (or origin transloader) of the cargo to be sure that the rail bill of lading is properly prepared to bring the railcars to the desired destination. They will also obtain movement rates if payment for shipping is a consignee responsibility. You will be able to obtain 24/7 online tracing information, the same as for outbound cargo. When railcars arrive in the local area, your destination transloader will be notified that the cars are available for unloading and will give the serving railroad instructions on when and where to place the cars for unloading. Once unloaded, the railcars are released empty to the serving railroad.
To view our transload facilities and operators at each of our railroads, select the Facilities tab on each of the railroad pages. For transloading and warehousing services at any U.S. location, see Precision Terminal Logistics and Kearney Companies.