Why are container fees higher at inland rail hubs?

Two handoffs instead of one

A container railed inland usually travels on one through bill of lading: by ship to a US port, by train to an inland rail ramp, then by truck to you. At a seaport, the container leaves the terminal on a truck. At an inland hub, it comes off the train first and waits on the ramp for pickup, and then a trucker needs a chassis and an appointment. Each handoff is another place to lose a day, and lost days are what delay fees bill for. Freight Benchmarks counts these shipments at the inland hub, so the hub’s figures include everything that happened after the train.

Where the chassis is

At many rail ramps the chassis pool is not where the container is, so the driver collects a chassis first and the container second. Truckers bill the extra move as a chassis split. At the Minneapolis–St. Paul hub, 62.7% of trucked shipments paid one, at Omaha 46.8% and at Chicago 39.0%, against 29.0% across all published ports.

More days on wheels

Longer drives from the ramp and a second leg back with the empty mean more days on a chassis. Chassis extra days were billed on 66.2% of trucked shipments at Minneapolis–St. Paul, 44.8% at Omaha and 41.5% at Chicago, against 37.5% across all ports. Per diem can run longer too when the empty has to go back to a ramp or depot some distance away: 7.2% of shipments at Minneapolis–St. Paul paid it, against 3.7% across all ports.

Is rail still the right call?

Often it is. Rail is the practical way to move an ocean container a long way inland, and a long truck haul from the coast has costs of its own. The alternative is a transload: the goods are unloaded near the port and move inland in a domestic trailer or container, so the ocean container never leaves the coast. That avoids ramp fees and inland per diem but adds warehouse handling. The fees above are the ones to put in writing whichever way you go. The table ranks every published port and rail hub, so you can see where yours sits.