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

Modernized Locomotives Are Making Railroad History

Imagine you own a 20-year-old vehicle and are tasked with bringing it up to modern-day technology and safety standards. Those who aren’t mechanically inclined are likely see that as a tall, if not impossible, order.

Now imagine a similar job being performed on a six-axle, heavy-haul freight locomotive. That’s a far bigger undertaking, considering locomotives weigh an average of about 200 tons (400,000 pounds), whereas the weight of an average passenger vehicle rings in at 4,156 pounds. The job gets more complicated when you learn the locomotive can have as many as 210,000 internal parts, including more than six miles of wiring.

Now, multiply that effort by 600, and you’ve arrived at the work ahead for Wabtec Corporation. The company is charged with modernizing 600 Union Pacific locomotives to improve performance in ways that ultimately benefit the railroad, its customers, and the environment. The $1 billion investment to upgrade these existing locomotives represents the largest-ever rail industry investment in an existing locomotive fleet.

Rail Crossing Safety: Fact or Fiction?

Since 2017, Operation Life Saver’s Rail Safety Week has helped educate and empower the public to make safe decisions around trains and tracks. It’s important work, since every three hours a collision between a person or vehicle and a train occurs on railroad tracks in the United States. The good news is many of these tragedies are preventable, which is why it’s critical to know the facts about rail safety.

This year’s Rail Safety Week is September 19-25 but staying vigilant about rail safety should happen every day of the year. Take this quiz to test your knowledge and learn more about protecting yourself and others around train tracks.

Celebrating National Hispanic American Heritage Month: A Q&A with Seven Transportation Leaders

National Hispanic American Heritage Month begins on September 15 each year. That date bears significance, as it marks the anniversary of independence for Latin American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. The 30-day period that follows includes two other independence days: Mexico on September 16 and Chile on September 18. It is also inclusive of Día de la Raza (“Day of the Race”), which recognizes and honors the people, traditions, and cultures that were destroyed as a result of European colonization and serves a counterpoint to Columbus Day.

What began in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week expanded in 1988 to become National Hispanic American Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Spain. In honor of this important month, seven Latinx leaders share how they are making a mark on the industry and their perspectives on the importance of National Hispanic American Heritage Month.

Can a Train Ship a Charcuterie Board?

If you’re a fan of charcuterie boards, you know there is something magical that happens when meat, cheese, nuts, fruit, jams and spreads all unite on one platter. With a congregation of savory and sweet indulgences, it’s no wonder they are so popular.

But how do charcuterie boards come together? Long before the cheese is sliced and meat is twirled into eye-catching blossoms, the products on a meat and cheese tray often begin their journey to your table inside of a rail car. Take this quiz to find out which ones ship by rail.

Can Biofuel Power a Locomotive Fleet to Reduce GHG Emissions?

Can biofuel power a locomotive fleet? As the rail industry seeks to reduce its environmental impact, this is a hot button question.

Traditionally, locomotives have run on petroleum diesel fuel. But in recent years, railroads have tested and implemented the use of biofuel blends. These blends combine petroleum diesel with biodiesel and/or renewable diesel, both of which are made from renewable resources and burn cleaner than petroleum diesel.

A new pilot program has Union Pacific going beyond the blend. Now, the company isn’t just asking if biofuel can power locomotives; they are testing whether engines can run on 100% renewable fuels.

Transforming Rice Straw Into Sustainable Building Material

In California’s Sacramento Valley, hot days, cool nights, and moisture rich clay soil create the perfect growing conditions for rice. Farms in this region produce 20% of the nation’s rice, helping make California the second-largest rice-growing state in the United States.

Each year, that rice yields 1.5 million tons of rice straw, a byproduct of harvested rice that must be removed to make way for the next season’s crop. Traditionally, farmers burned their fields to dispose of the straw and make way for the next growing season. But in 1991, environmental concerns pushed the State of California to mandate farmers phase out of field burning. Farmers turned to field flooding — but that came with its own set of environmental issues, including wasting water and releasing methane into the air during the flooding process.

Two environmentally conscious Sacramento Valley rice farmers, Jerry Uhland and Jim Boyd, knew there had to be a better way. Their vision? Harvest the rice straw itself and use it to make a brand-new product. Wheat straw had been used to make particle board, so perhaps rice straw could be used the same way. Initial particle board trials were not successful, so they turned to another idea: making fiberboard. This idea landed, and sustainability startup CalPlant was born.

Today, CalPlant’s 276-acre Sacramento Valley production site can convert 280,000 tons of agricultural waste into 150 million square feet of Eureka MDF sheets — making Uhland and Boyd’s vision responsible for advancing sustainability in both the rice farming and MDF industries.

The Circular Economy of Sulfuric Acid

Sulfuric acid is one of the most widely used chemicals in the world. It’s used to mine things like copper and lithium, which are integral to electric vehicle (EV) production, EV infrastructure and EV batteries. It’s also critical to the production of high-octane fuel. It’s used to produce things like carpet, fertilizer, and paper. Food-grade sulfuric acid serves as a preservative and aids in the production of foods like cheese and beer. And those are just a few examples.

In the 1940s, long before the term “circular economy” became part of the lexicon, Ecoservices’ predecessor Stauffer Chemical began recycling used (aka “spent”) sulfuric acid, thereby creating a circular production model.

Today, Ecoservices continues to regenerate spent acid to give it a second life. Doing so saves millions of tons of used acid from becoming waste while also producing more sulfuric acid for the marketplace. That’s not the only sustainable step Ecoservices takes — the company uses environmentally responsible transportation to help move sulfuric acid through the loop, and their product is key to improving fuel efficiency for vehicles, as well as aids in the electrification process.