Union Pacific Railroad's new Plant-to-Port transportation and transload program provides customer product transfer from covered hopper unit trains directly to marine containers at the railroad's Yermo, Calif., facility. The program includes double-stack intermodal train service on dock to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Union Pacific Distribution Services (UPDS) adds door-to-door supply chain logistics to the service, meaning customers can manage their entire freight movement through Union Pacific with a single point of contact.

Plant-to-Port initially will serve distillers dried grains (DDG) customers but is designed to handle bulk grain and processed grain products.

"This new unit train service provides a first-of-its-kind, plant-to-port transportation solution for our DDG customers," said Paul Hammes, Union Pacific vice president and general manager - Agricultural Products. "The Renewable Fuels Standard mandates increased ethanol production through 2015 and customers will need export solutions to supply new co-products markets. Demand from Asia is driving DDG, grain and grain products export growth to the west coast and we are offering those markets a source of empty marine containers, freight delivery and throughput capacity."

Empty 40-foot marine containers moved from Union Pacific's Intermodal Container Transfer Facility in Long Beach are staged at the railroad's Yermo facility prior to customer product arrival, expediting the transloading process.

UPDS provides marine container supply management, real-time product tracking, direct ocean carrier contact and transload management, all with a staff dedicated to this service.