Moo-ving Liquid Cattle Feed By Rail

With Watco as a logistics partner, moving freight by rail can be as easy and reliable as trucking.

Take a Wisconsin-based agriculture manufacturer, for example. After exclusively moving their product over the road, they decided last year to shift their transportation strategy to rail in order to enter new markets as far away as Washington, California, and Texas.

The customer sought a third-party logistics provider to help them make this shift. And that’s just what our team did, thanks to the efforts of many like Logistics Director Sabin Reynolds, Oshkosh Transload Terminal Manager Solomon Watkins, and Wisconsin & Southern Railroad (WSOR) Sales Manager Mike Sullivan.

There’s always a learning curve when trying something new. But with Watco as their partner, the customer quickly got up to speed and benefited from having our team serve as a trusted advocate.

Reynolds said, “We were glued to the hip of the customer throughout the setup and implementation process. Our team covered everything from how a railcar is configured, the cost of leasing railcars, to physically showing them how to safely transload product from truck to rail.”

For rail to be a success for this customer, it was essential to lease a fleet of tank cars to support this business. That’s not the easiest task given the nation’s current railcar shortage. But that didn’t deter Watco. Team members served as liaisons between the customer and railcar brokers, located the appropriate tank cars, and aided in pricing conversations.

After procuring the fleet, Watco tackled the next obstacle: demurrage. To avoid congesting Class I railroads or serving yards before rail operations started, Watco metered tank cars into the OshKosh Transload Terminal.

Today, all tank cars are in use. Watco’s logistics team uses freight technology to monitor tank cars every step of the way — from starting at the Oshkosh Transload Terminal, and the WSOR track and interchange points where tank cars get picked up by Class I partners, and final delivery. And at any time a tank car stays parked for too long or is misrouted, our logistics experts help resolve the issue quickly.

“To say the customer is pleased is an understatement,” said Sullivan. “Watco is excited to grow alongside this customer. We could potentially have double the railcars dedicated to this customer by this time next year.”