UP: What Can You Ship by Rail?

What Can You Ship by Rail?

A guide to shipping freight like construction materials, food, beverages, new vehicles and other goods by train

If you're looking to find out which kinds of goods ship by train, this list outlines many of the important items that railroads move.

Wondering which products you can ship by train? The short answer is that trains can haul just about anything. From materials mined from the earth to the products that make a house a home and everything in between, you can ship it by rail.

But let’s get into a little more detail.

Don't miss the "What Can You Ship by Rail?" video at the end!

Building and Construction Materials

Pipe

Ask a rail fan and they’ll say trains build America. Even though they may be a little biased, it’s sort of true. Think about the materials used to build your own home – odds are, they probably moved by rail before making their way to the job site. Those building materials include things like:

Lumber
Pipe
Metals
Asphalt
Paper
Rebar
Metal Coil
Bricks
Shingles and Other Roofing Products

Household Goods

Household Goods

If you take a closer look at the items inside your house, most everything you see can ship by rail.

Boxes
Parcels
Shoes
Clothing
Toys
Furniture
Appliances
Electronics

NOTE: While railroads do ship goods that ultimately end up in peoples' homes, they typically don't ship personal property (e.g., an individual person's household goods). So where they do ship household goods, they don't ship individual households.

Food

Food

What’s in your fridge? How about your kitchen cabinets? Most of that — including the cold stuff! — can move by rail.

Packaged Food
Canned Goods
Frozen Food
Produce
Seafood
Cheese
Chocolate

Beverages

Beverages

Beverages can move by rail, too — even those that come in glass bottles.

Beer
Wine
Tequila
Orange Juice

Liquids

Liquids

Everything from the fuel that powers your vehicle and heats/cools your home to the corn syrup that sweetens your cereal can be moved by rail.

Ethanol
Biodiesel
Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF)
Corn Syrup
Petroleum
LPG

Large Items

Large Items

Railroads can ship very large, heavy and oversized freight that can be difficult to move by truck.

Transformers
Wind Turbines
Machinery
Military Vehicles
Rocket Boosters

Small Items in Large Quantities

Small Items in Large Quantities

Teeny tiny items in really big quantities (better known as bulk items) are also ideal for rail.

Vehicles

Vehicles

A train can also move vehicles — and even the parts they're made of (but please note freight railroads typically don't ship personal vehicles).

Cars
Trucks
SUVs
Auto Parts

A Little Bit of Everything Else

A Little Bit of Everything Else

What else? Well, just about anything can ship by rail.

Paper
Recycled Materials
Solar Panels
Waste
Feed Products
Christmas Trees
Paint
Carpet
Irrigation Equipment
Fibers
Grains
Minerals
And More (some of which are surprising!)

What's Left?

That leaves one question: What can’t you ship by rail? It’s a short list: Personal property, passengers, pets or other living things.

Learn More

Want to learn more about shipping by rail? Find out where you can ship and how you can ship door-to-door, even if you don’t have access to railroad tracks today. Or, answer a few quick questions to get a rate or connect with a shipping expert.

Related Articles:

What Can You Ship by Rail? video

How Do Logistics Consultants Benefit Supply Chains?

According to the APQC 2023 Supply Chain Priorities and Challenges Survey Report, respondents indicated the following are their top logistics and inventory management priorities:

Optimize inventory
Implement methods to reduce transportation costs
Improve collaboration and communication
Implement modern technology and new capabilities
Shorten cycle time
Standardize processes

None of these are simple tasks, and all of them take time that supply chain managers often don’t have. Even without bandwidth limitations, supply chain managers may feel like they’ve already exhausted their possibilities for improvement.

In these instances, a fresh set of eyes on supply chain processes and challenges can uncover innovative solutions.

This is the role of logistics consultants. Using their extensive experience optimizing supply chains, logistics consultants help companies achieve their supply chain priorities. Oftentimes logistics consultants implement solutions quickly that yield long-term results.

How does logistics consulting work? These four examples demonstrate the value logistics consultants can bring to supply chain optimization and supply chain challenges.

How to Ship Machinery, Farm Equipment & Construction Equipment by Rail

Before a tractor begins digging at a construction site, a combine harvests crops at a farm, or a gas turbine propels an airplane, they have made a journey that starts at the manufacturer and ends at a destination several states or hundreds of miles away. These types of machinery aren’t small, and they certainly aren’t light. So how do you ship them?

One of the best ways to ship machinery is by train, especially when the machinery is large and heavy. Rail cars are built to hold very heavy loads, and one rail car can typically hold 3-4 times as much freight as a truck.

Keep reading to get a guide to rail shipping for heavy machinery.

Rail Shippers: What to Do Before and After Heavy Rain and Floods

In the first part of 2023, California experienced 31 atmospheric river storms in a matter of months, bringing record snowfall amounts, heavy rain and dangerous flooding to the state. Still to come is California’s ‘big melt,’ which is likely to result in additional flooding when dense snowpack thaws. But California isn’t the only state to see extreme weather events this year.

In April, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, saw severe storms and got nearly 26 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. It was a 1,000-year rainfall event that resulted in a flash flood emergency and even forced the airport to close due to flooding.

Later that month heavy rainfall in the Minneapolis area caused rivers to crest, created safety risks and left residents preparing for the worst flooding in nearly two decades.

Although these are some of the most extreme weather events so far in 2023, they aren’t the only areas to feel the impacts of severe storms, heavy rainfall and flooding. No area is ever immune to the effects of weather — and that means you need to be prepared.

Follow these tips before and after flooding to help keep your employees safe, minimize damage to rail cars, and help you get back in business quickly.

Asian American & Pacific Islander Leaders in Transportation History

Each May the United States celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. This month commemorates the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants to the United States on May 7, 1843, and the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869.

A significant portion of track for the transcontinental railroad was laid by Chinese immigrants, and our country is still indebted to them for building the foundation of our freight shipping infrastructure — which we continue to rely on today.

“Our company’s past and future are intertwined with successful AAPI employees who are modernizing our railroad, serving our customers and leading us to success,” said Chief Diversity Officer Debra Schrampfer.

Asian American and Pacific Islanders have continued to play an important role in the transportation industry, as is exemplified by the following AAPI leaders.

How Railroads Prevent Derailments: Railroad Safety Technology

If you drive a vehicle or are a frequent passenger, you understand there is always a risk of getting in an accident — it’s one of the tradeoffs you make in return for getting from point A to point B quickly and conveniently.

The freight shipping industry is susceptible to risks, too, with the tradeoff being delivery of the goods people rely on every day. Trucks hauling freight on our nation’s highways and city streets face the risk of crashes just like passenger vehicles do. Trains are also subject to risk, namely in the form of derailments.

The good thing about a known risk is that you can do something about it. Railroads put significant time, resources, and money into mitigating the risk of derailments and doing all they can to keep shipments — and moreover, people and communities — safe. This makes freight rail one of the safest industries in the nation.

The following are just a few of the technologies railroads employ to operate safely.

How Does Carbon Capture Help the Planet?

Alternative energy sources like electricity, wind turbines, and solar cells are often cited as solutions for reducing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels while also reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions. However, these solutions are far from operating at full scale and need time to become dominant energy sources. But what about current operations that rely on fossil fuels to operate — what can they do about their GHG emissions today? And what about the emissions associated with generating electricity and manufacturing turbines and solar panels?

A process called carbon capture is one way to mitigate existing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and emissions from existing industrial facilities and power plants.

From Steam to Green: The History and Evolution of Locomotives

On February 21, 1804, British mining engineer, inventor and explorer Richard Trevithick debuted the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive in the Welsh mining town of Merthyr Tydfil. Following that debut, locomotives have been powered by a myriad of fuels, including wood, coal and oil. Then, in 1913, diesel powered locomotives hit the scene in Sweden, followed by the U.S. in 1939 and continue to dominate the landscape today.

Locomotives have evolved a great deal since their inception, becoming much more efficient and environmentally friendly over time. Let’s take a look back at Union Pacific’s history of locomotive use to see how they have developed into today’s green powerhouses that can move one ton of freight nearly 500 miles on a single gallon of fuel.