Ever wonder how the UPS and FedEx Ground packages you ship travel across the country? They go by train.
And in the December 2012 issue of Trains magazine, we take you inside one of the top railroad intermodal yards for FedEx and UPS Ground shipments: BNSF Railway’s Willow Springs terminal outside Chicago.
We spent 24 hours inside the yard, talking to the people who make it run, watching trains come and go, and seeing how trains get built and boxes get loaded and unloaded.
The critical machines in today’s intermodal yards are the overhead rubber-tired gantry cranes that lift containers on and off intermodal railcars.
Watch the video below to see one of these towering cranes in action at another BNSF Railway yard: the Logistics Park Chicago facility near Joliet, Ill. The Mi-Jack “Translift” crane featured has an inside width of 38 feet, 8 inches; a hook height of 22 feet, 3 inches; and the capacity to lift 100,000 pounds.
And pick up the December 2012 issue of Trains to spend 24 hours inside Willow Springs.
