We see them parked at distribution centers and out on the highways. We see them double-stacked on top of each other, making up a mile of train length running through Utah.
What are they? They are ocean containers and they either came off of — or are going to — an ocean vessel over 700 miles away at the ports of Oakland or Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Simply put, import containers — in lengths ranging from 20 feet to 45 feet — are brought in directly from international sources, without the customs seal being broken, for either local use and consumption or for regional distribution from Utah. Export containers are these same import containers, re-used and returned to port after being stuffed with local freight for international delivery.
The system works well in Utah because of the high volume of agricultural exports such as hay. In many areas of the country, with little export freight, this system works with much less efficiency, which creates what the international steamship companies — whose business it is to fill their ships with containers going both in and out of U.S. ports — call an “equipment imbalance.” When this occurs, a steamship line is forced to make the decision to either reposition the empty containers back to a West Coast port or store them locally in a container yard depot in hopes of avoiding the cost of the repositioning.
In Utah, we are served only by the Union Pacific Railroad, which has a fairly new and efficient facility just west of the Salt Lake City International Airport. The rail yard serves both international freight in containers and domestic freight in trailers. Unlike import containers, trailers are moved into Utah from both coasts as well as the Gulf of Mexico with products that were produced in the U.S. or originally arrived in the country via an ocean vessel with the freight “trans-loaded” into a domestic trailer for delivery.
To complete and facilitate the process of international steamship lines, the railroad and the local trucking community working together to deliver imported goods and provide equipment for export, the container yard depots come into play. In Salt Lake City, there basically are three depots that contract with the various steamship lines to accept, inspect, provide maintenance and issue back out the containers for export use. In addition to managing the container equipment, they also have contracts with chassis provider companies that own the rigs used to move the containers as well as take them on and off the train.
While Utah is not considered a big market based on population, we are very well perceived in the transportation industry because we have a steady and consistent market that is not largely affected by trends that plague other markets. In additional, our ability to provide export products for the steamship companies to help offset the cost of having to reposition empty containers helps us remain a healthy inland location for both international and domestic transportation.
Michael Stockwell is co-owner of Mountain West Container Services, a local international trucking company as well as a container yard depot and chassis pool operator in Salt Lake City.