BNSF Idles Freight Cars Due to Downturn
Freight railroad BNSF Railway Co. is parking miles of rail cars in some parts of the country because there is not enough freight to keep them moving, the Associated Press reported Monday.
Rail cars that usually carry 40-foot containers of goods shipped from Asia via West Coast ports are parked in Montana. The cars standing between Helena and Great Falls, Mont., make up about 5% of the BNSF fleet, AP said.
BNSF has parked upward of 1,000 cars in that state alone, a company spokesman told AP. More are parked in other parts of the railroad’s 32,000-mile system, which operates in 28 states and two Canadian provinces.
An official with truckload carrier Schneider National, which uses extensive intermodal in its operations, said he believed a freight recession began more than a year ago, AP said.
Schneider is not parking trucks, but neither is it buying new ones to the usual extent, AP reported.
