By Arthur Chen    Gate Entrance: 2701 Intermodal Drive, Rochelle, IL 61068 | Google Map | Website | 

As the one of largest rail transit hub in the middle of United States, no matter from Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver on the West Coast or New York, Savannah, Houston on the east coast, Chicago is the intersection center which acting as the hub of transferring to the Midwest, both in & out in Midwest cities such as Detroit, St. Louis, Dallas, etc. The sea-rail intermodal transportation is the longest and most reliable way of transportation in the United States. With low transportation cost and bondless rail and highway transportation networks, it provided daily necessary goods for residents in the cities from overseas to retail warehouses before the outbreak of the covid pandemic. It was reliable and on-time delivery service for decades.  The supply chain of multiple productions and consumptions in the United States are all count on such intermodal transportation. Rail transportation is just like the main artery in the US, and Chicago is acting the heart  driving endless flow of goods from overseas into all cities in the United States, and move American goods from factories to Chicago rail hub. And then connecting to east and west coasts on board to overseas. The infrastructure of U.S. railroads was reclaimed and constructed from the east coast to the west coast in a hundred years ago, linked up all east, west, south and north states. In fact, it established the foundation of American national great strength for century.

However, after the outbreak of the covid pandemic, along with the temporary lockdown of the cities last year to prevent the spreading out, it caused severe labor shortage till this year (the reason may be that some workers retire early, and some workers prefer to receive unemployment benefits at home rather than return to work. ). It also severely exposed the obsolescence of US ports and railway infrastructure that could not accelerate the overall domestic logistics and transportation demand. In addition to the inefficiency of sea port equipment, railway transfer stations and terminal equipment are far from being able to keep up with the endless supply of freight demand imported from overseas to the United States. The critical reason found out there is a serious shortage of container “trailer chassis” in the railway terminals that causes the containers to be transferred to Chicago from the east and west ports to pile up in the terminals, and the congestion paralyzes the railway transiting function. The author's company has a large-scale, well-known chain houseware store in the Midwestern United US that has two 40-foot containers arrived at the” Global III” rail terminal of Union Pacific Railway in Chicago from the Port of Seattle on June 6.  They were stranded in the terminal over 65 days before rail company found available trailer chassis could be transferred internally onto shuttle train from the “Global III” terminal to the “Global IV” terminal in order for clients to pick up these two containers from there ! ! ! Even if Union Pacific Railway and BNSF Railway stopped accepting all containers from the West coast to the Chicago terminal for a week at the same time on July 18, hoping to dissolve the containers piled up in the Chicago railway terminal, such exaggerated delays are still happening every day. The difference is only the number of days of delay!  These chassis are not expensive equipment at all that do not require much investment, but the lack of this inconspicuous key equipment results in the paralysis of the most important Midwest transferring hub in the US for more than half a year.  It expresses that the basic investment of these private railway companies is far from enough, and they do not pay much attention to it.

By the information from Union Pacific Railway Company, there are 5 railroad terminals in Chicago.  “Global III” is the "starting and final receiving hub" that connects to east and west ports and the inland all cities ! This terminal is a “must stop” for all transit containers to inland cities. These 5 railway terminals connected to each other by short-distance shuttle trains to complete the role of transferring hub in middle USA. However, ironically because of short of small gear, “container chassis”, in this key distribution hub, the important transportation function of the railway has been paralyzed for half year, and it becomes an embolism of the heart and blood vessels! 

Beside the sea-rail intermodal transportation stuck in Chicago. It is also a transit hub for air freight in the Midwestern US. It's been paralyzed like the railway terminal, it's been more than half a year! Various airlines have signed contracts with different airport operating warehouses to break down the airline's pallets (ULD) from the airport cargo terminals to their respective warehouses. Airlines pallets are break down there and waiting for picking up by the consignees. These contracted deconsolidation warehouses are not all in good service quality, such as Alliance Ground International, which has the most serious problem (unfortunately some of our customers have spent more than 30 days waiting for pick-up from Alliance Ground Int’l), and because of the pandemic, there have been in lack of labors, more worse, they are in serious short of skilled labors with enough experience. Experienced laborers operate daily work such as breakdown, distributing goods, sorting out goods and deliver them and so on. The shortage of manpower in the warehouses is as same as the insufficient of chassis in the Union Pacific Global III terminal, which directly caused obstacles to the logistics process and caused even greater total paralysis.  Upcoming of the holiday sales season, the drastic high volume pulling in logistics, challenges faced by Chicago will only be greater.

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