Eric Joiner's Freightdawg.com - The Logistics and Supply Chain Blog!

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I've been in a rail fan kind of mood lately and reloaded Microsoft Train Simulator on my PC.  This is an old sim from almost 10 years ago, but being a transportation geek, I enjoy virtually moving trains around, especially Double Stack Trains and the old F and E unit car body locomotives... However, this is a French Duplex high speed train.  Speed to BURN baby.

That looks pretty cool...but this is a game. Check this video out. This is the real deal absolutely screaming across France.

Here's another video that compares the French TGV against the Japanese Shinkansen.  I've had the pleasure several times of riding the Japanese bullet trains.  They are fabulous.

And yes, I have a fairly current gaming computer.  I get over 50 frames per second in this old sim.

RailTrends 2010: NYC Sept 28-29, 2010

The top railroad conference in North America returns for its 6th year in New York on September 28th and 29th, 2010.   Matt Rose, Chairman, President and CEO of BNSF Railway Co. will be the honored guest, receiving the Railroad Innovator Award, presented by Progressive Railroading Magazine.   Details of the conference are below.

Make plans to be a part of it September 28-29, 2010, in New York City. RailTrends is the rail profession’s reliable source for:

• Industry insights, innovations and advancements
• Executive elbow-rubbing
• Intelligent investment information

Brought to you by two rail-industry authorities, Progressive Railroading magazine and Senior Transportation Analyst Tony Hatch, this two-day summit was carefully crafted to address the issues that matter most to rail professionals. Facilitated by some of the rail industry's most-respected authorities, RailTrends presentations will address all facets of the industry, including:

• Wall Street’s take on the rail industry
• Freight railroad executives’ views on rail in the post-recession economy
• What lenders look for in a railroad
• The Obama Administration’s position on rail policy and high-speed rail

RailTrends provides you with an amazing opportunity to connect with the best of the best from all areas of the rail industry: Shippers, Suppliers, Banks and Financial Organizations, Lessors, Short-Lines and Class Is.

Past heavy-hitter attendees include:
• Vice President, Corporate for Walmart Transportation
• Vice President and Managing Director for GATX Corporation
• Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Gannett Fleming Transit & Rail Systems
• Senior Vice President and General Manager for Siemens Financial Services Inc.
• Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Kansas City Southern

You can register for the conference at this link.

BNSF Updates Web Site

 Steve Manning, who is the Manager of web content and social media at BNSF, wrote me the other day to inform me that the railroad is updating its web site with easier navigation, improved content and much improved user tools.   check it out at www.bnsf.com.   

Make a point of checking out the really cool virtual train tour.   This flash application tells you about the parts of a rail engine, rail consist and the roles of the rail personnel involved with the operation of the train.   Really good stuff.   As a rail fan, I loved it.   

ABS Capital Partners invests in INTTRA

Capital infusion to fund development of e-commerce portal

INTTRA, the carrier-owned portal for ocean-freight bookings, is getting a fresh capital infusion that will enable it to develop new electronic commerce services for new markets.

ABS Capital Partners, a capital fund that specializes in later-stage growth companies, has invested $30 million in INTTRA and is taking a majority stake in it.

INTTRA will use these funds to further develop its platform for electronic invoicing and to roll out a new product that will enable shippers to make bookings and instructions with non-vessel-operating common carriers.

“ABS Capital’s investment will give us the financial strength to accelerate our business plans and operations,” said INTTRA CEO Ken Bloom.

He said INTTRA’s search for new investment was started by its board more than two years ago before the onset of recession.

via www.joc.com

The INTTRA ocean portal is one of two major carrier neutral portals for booking, documentation and tracking of ocean freight.

Originally backed by European ocean carriers such as Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, the portal has grown in sophistication and breadth of membership.

A number of leading NVOCC's including DHL Global Forwarding, Panalpina and UTi, also belong to the portal as a way to provide a common user interface to ocean customers who want a one stop shop for eCommerce.

The ABS investment is interesting because (as far as I know), this is the first VC investment into the portal. Given that the portal is backed by several of the worlds largest ocean carriers, the investment must be viewed as relatively safe. However for cash strapped ocean carriers, this has to be seen as a major win in divesting the majority stake in a non-core business whilst still keeping the portal and its inherent economic benefits intact. 

Venture Capitalists are not known for their long term views nor holdings, so it will be interesting to see how a VC dominant position on the INTTRA board changes the direction of the company over time.  As a late stage investor, ABS may intend to hold the investment for a longer period, but one wonders what the eventual exit strategy of a VC would be in an ocean portal? 

Eric

Elvis has Left the Building: Memphis Chamber goes For Freight

 Most people think of Memphis as the home of Elvis, Blues and Barbecue.  That's all good, but that ain't all there is. Not according to the Memphis Chamber of Commerce anyway. 

Freight is also important in Memphis Tennessee.  How many metropolitan Chambers of Commerce have a Vice President of Logistics? Memphis does.

Jim Covington is the Vice President of Logistics for the Greater Memphis Chamber, and he wants new business.  Air, ocean, intermodal, river traffic...the works.   In this regard, the Greater Memphis Chamber has started a marketing campaign dubbing Memphis as "Americas Aerotropolis".  

America's Aerotropolis

Memphis has the blessing of being centrally located in the United States.  Its location on the Mississippi River also gives it access to the biggest riverine domestic corridor in the country.

Freight transportation companies can obviously read a map.  A well known purple express company has its largest global hub in Memphis, making it the busiest cargo airport in the country.  Additionally several major railroads have intermodal hubs in Memphis.  All this makes for a great place for companies to set up distribution facilities in the region.  Retailers like Williams Sonoma, Dell, and others have facilities nearby in order to leverage the infrastructure.

Nevertheless, Memphis wants more.  See this linked White paper that the Greater Memphis Chamber has put out on the benefits of the city and surrounding areas.   The local TV stations are in line with the effort. Check out this news story that includes some video as well. 

At the end of the day, the Chamber of Commerce in Memphis wants jobs.   Whether employment comes from additional transportation company investment, warehousing or retailer investment, the community wants to grow and is leveraging its best assets to make that happen.

Eric

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Busy Week

This has been an interesting first two days of the week.  On Monday, June 21st,  I attended the graduation of a cousin of mine from the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, NY.

Kings Point cranks out experienced young people with more sea time than any other Maritime academy including Annapolis.   It was my first time to KP.  What an impressive place.  With a motto of "Acta non Verba" (Action, Not Words),  The USMMA trains young people who are ready for the operational end of our industry.  

The graduating class of 2009 was composed of only about 150 graduates.  However among them were an impressive number of young women. In fact the valedictorian of the class as well as the class president were both female, one of which was matriculating with a degree in intermodal logistics.   It's not unusual to find that the senior management of shipping companies, terminal operators and related firms all have Kings Point grads at or near the top.

My cousin will go directly to a destroyer based in Yokosuka, Japan for active duty with the Navy.   Given the crazies in North Korea, I worry our young man will be in Harms Way, sooner rather than later.

Kings Point is a small school, but they usually draw important visitors.   The kids graduating Monday received commissions from the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard.  In almost every case, there was a flag or general officer present to commission the new ensigns and lieutenants.    The graduation keynote speaker was US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.   LaHood is a career politician and Obama appointee new to his job.  As a result his comments were brief.   However, he did report that the 2010 federal budget would contain approximately 12 million dollars for KP to maintain and renovate facilities.   With that being the extent of his salient comments, I'm not sure what that means for our transportation department!

Flying back to Atlanta from New York wasn't without tribulation.   Having spent 20 minutes in a holding pattern over Greenville SC,  the rocket scientists at Air Traffic Control diverted our Delta MD-88 to Birmingham for fuel.   We sat there for an hour, before being vectored back to the ATL.   Total flight time from NY to ATL: 8 Hours.  That one made me wish our Secretary of Transportation could be aboard.  No such luck.  Guys at his level fly in private jets!

Eyefortransport 3PL Summit, Atlanta Georgia

On Tuesday,  I attended the Eyefortransport 3PL Summit here in Atlanta.  I'm on the board of the American Society of Transportation & Logistics, so I was asked if I would attend if given a free ticket.   I've attended various eyefortransport events over the years including events in Hong Kong and Amsterdam.  They are usually well attended by important folks on both the 3PL and customer sides of the fence.  Not so much this year.    Only about 145 people attended.   I suppose this is a result of the tight travel and entertainment budgets most firms have in place today.   Nobody has the extra cash to attend a business conference.    That would have been the case with me, but I live in Atlanta and the ticket was free!

On the whole the conference was valuable, with keynote speakers from Maersk Logistics (soon to be Damco), MeadWestVaco and other firms, subjects like compliance and risk management were discussed and presented.  These conferences are about people however.  It takes a quorum of industry professionals sharing their knowledge that keeps these things interesting and valuable.   In this regard I think EFT missed the mark this year.   For the most part I think that's not their fault.   In case you haven't noticed...the economy sucks.

In Obamaland All You Need Is The Willing Suspension Of Disbelief

Some people are just pathologically honest.  Check out the blog article written by my friend Mike Regan of Tranzact Technologies.   Mike calls em like he sees em.   I typically agree with his positions.  Check out his excellent article today at Logistics Managements web site.  Mike is a Chicagoan and highly familiar with the ways of our President.  Given that our SecTrans is also a Illinois career politician, some comments apply to Ray LaHood as well.

Eric

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Railroad Security: CSX Leads with SecureNOW

One hundred years ago, railroad police were mostly focused on the security of railyards, preventing robberies of trains en route and keeping "non paying" passengers off their trains.  Today,  while many of those responsibilities remain,  the job of keeping the rails secure has multiplied many fold, especially since 9/11.   

Today,  rail operations and security teams must not only protect rail assets and the public, they must defend against unknown and unseen threats from terrorists.     After 9/11, the rail industry established industry standards for rail security and the sharing and reporting of threats.   The key mantra of that initiative was "Recognize, Record and Report". CSX has taken that industry standard and built upon it.

As a class 1 railroad, CSX operates 1000 trains a day over 21000 miles of track.   If it moves from Chicago eastward in the United States, there's a good chance its moving on a CSX train.  To protect the rail  network, CSX has developed a web based workstation application called SecureNOW.  SecureNOW stands for Secure Network Operations Workstation. 

Using SecureNOW, rail operations teams can see, in real time, the location of every train and every rail shipment on the CSX network.   Further, they can isolate hazmat shipments within the train consist to determine geographic location, shipment details, rail car type and class as well as hazmat emergency information.   

SecureNOW also uses GoogleMaps type technology to allow zoom in geographic mapping to allow operations teams to see exactly where a rail car is relative to cities, towns, shipper plants and  facilities etc.     Suppose there is a fire at a shipper rail facility.  Also suppose that there is a tank car of hazardous toluene on the rail siding.    CSX can immediately see where that car is located and report the threat to local fire and police authorities.

  The beauty of SecureNOW is that this system is designed to share information.   CSX has made it available to state and federal authorities in many states with intent to share with all agencies across its network.  For law enforcement authorities this is great technology for understanding both potential and actual risk in their communities.   The railroad has SecureNOW active in 5 states within the CSX network

Future versions of SecureNOW will allow display of information on intermodal and ocean containers.  With the TSA focused on 10+2 and other information transparency initiatives, the railroads will have to develop this capability in order to show hazardous or high risk shipments within ocean containers.  For doublestack train consists, the ocean carrier is the shipper of record as far as the railroad is concerned, but the manifest for the container and shipping information will need to be available to systems like SecureNOW in due course.

 Eric

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Port of Lazaro Cardenas, a Southern Alternative

Best of Freightdawg.com Article

Alternative ports both north and south of the US borders have taken on increasingly important roles as carriers add these ports to vessel strings in the transpac trade.   This article was published back in December 2007 but is more relevant now more than ever.

The other day I wrote about the Port of Prince Rupert, BC in western Canada.  Prince Rupert Island is positioned ideally as a natural northern alternative to congested US west coast ports. The combination of Prince Ruperts location plus speedy Canadian National Railroad connections across the top of North America can get shipments from Asia to the US heartland in record times.   That article also mentioned the development of port facilities in Mexico as possible alternatives.   The Port of Lazaro Cardenas, located on Mexico's west coast in the state of Michoacán is one worth considering.

The port of Lazaro Cardenas as well as the port of Manzanillo are both on Mexico's west coast.   Lazaro Cardenas is smaller, but has a key asset in that the on dock rail facilities are provided by Kansas City Southern de Mexico S.A. de C.V..    KCSM is a subsidiary of American railroad, Kansas City Southern.    That linkage gives Lazaro Cardenas on-dock intermodal links directly into the southern US as well as the shortest route to Mexico City.

Kansas City Southern purchased controlling interest in Transportacion Ferroviaria Mexicana (TFM) in April of 2005, enabling TFM, KCS and The Texas Mexican Railway Company to operate under common leadership, creating a single, 1300 mile rail system connecting the Midwestern United States, central Mexico and Mexico’s Pacific seaports.  KCS also makes connections to other US Railroads. One example would be delivery on the 7th morning into Atlanta from Lazaro Cardenas via a connection with Norfolk Southern.

The LCT Terminal was developed and managed by major international terminal operator, Hutchison Port Holdings.  That means the port is managed by experienced, professional terminal operations managers, and has the latest in terminal facilities.   LCT also offers a dedicated customs inspection area for railroad, truck and reefer cargo. 

Lazaro Cardenas is expected to handle over 2 million TEU's a year with future expansions.  LCT's deep water harbor features a natural 59 foot draft, capable of handling the most modern transpacific containerships.

Lazaro Cardenas Terminal is equipped with the latest in security technology, using pre-screening methods and advanced manifesting to alert both US and Mexican customs on the details of imported goods transiting the port.  New rules by Mexican customs authorities allow US importers to post a single $55,000 continuous bond for goods transiting Lazaro Cardenas for the US.  This move alone allows for significant savings over importation through LA or Long Beach.    Shippers also do not have to pay US harbor maintenance taxes for movement via Mexican ports.

Currently there are five shipping lines calling at the port of Lazaro Cardenas.  Maersk Line, NYK Line, COSCO, Evergreen and APL, with more to follow.   

Carrier strategies in vessel rotations can include LCT as a port call on a West Coast US String, as a port call on a West Coast South American rotation, as a first port of call prior to Panama Canal transit to the US East Coast, or as a connection to feeders for movement throughout Latin America.

With economies becoming global and international supply chain growth, use of alternative ports will become both economically and environmentally critical to the efficient movement of goods.   US West Coast ports will continue to grow, but alternatives provide not only a needed check valve to expansion pressures, but new jobs where there were few before. Those jobs will be true, new jobs, not ones taken from other markets.

Eric

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CSX Trip: Windy City Follow Up!

On October 7th, I and a number of other bloggers had a unique chance to visit with CSX Railroad management in Chicago. CSX invited a number of social media folks to come to Chicago to see their newest genset locomotive technology, as well as to provide access to CSX's communications and operations staffs.   About 15 people from sites such as Ars Technica, mattgoesgreen.com, ecollo.com, travel, trains and other things and others visited the CSXT intermodal railyard and got schooled on both Chicago local operations and how railroads work. I was the only logistics geek there, but that's good for freightdawg.com!

CSX is spending considerable money on establishing their brand and their mode of transportation as an efficient and eco-friendly way to transport goods.   That's not a touchy-feely thing as much as a solid approach to new media as part of a multi-media advertising campaign.  CSX advertisements directly claim that rail transportation is an efficient and environmentally friendly way to move goods.

By inviting professional and industry related bloggers to come see for themselves, CSX is underscoring their branding while providing legitimacy to their environmental investments.    Bloggers are usually good at unvarnished opinion. CSX has provided key bloggers with direct access to their communications teams for information when needed, as well as taking influential bloggers on site to see how the business operates.   This a very sophisticated approach for an old school transport mode and shows tremendous understanding of how Internet social media works.

Check out this link to mattgoesgreen.com and the pics and video Matt Trachtenberg took.    Personally, I got to meet some new and very smart people who are covering the Green side of business today. A very nice way to spend 2 days of vacation time!

Eric

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Supply Chain and Food Trading: AJC International

This article is about a story I have personally observed for over 35 years.   It is a story about my Dad and his company. Eric J. Joiner, Sr. is vice chairman of AJC International. 

Founded in 1973, AJC is a food trading company whose business has grown from 3 guys in a small office to a billion dollar company with a dominant position in the international trading of protein products. With headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, today AJC has 11 offices located all over the world and does business in over 140 countries.

Proteins consist primarily of frozen poultry, but beef, pork and other products are also traded. Key markets include Europe, China and Russia. Emerging markets such as India and Africa are targets but lack the cold chain infrastructure to support the demand.

Check out this podcast!

Recently Dad did a radio interview with a local Atlanta radio station.  The content of that interview can be listened to here.   

The interview is potentially interesting to the freightdawg.com audience because not only did the company founders come from transportation backgrounds but the key competitive differentiators for AJC today are in supply chain.   

Trading companies are fundamentally supply chain based.   This interview gives some excellent insight into that fact.  It also discusses the current international environment that trading companies must deal with.

For those who are interested in entering the international food trading environment for a career, significant insight is given on how these markets work and the personal prerequisites needed.

Eric

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