UP, Katoen Natie to provide ‘Dallas to Dock’ service

Class I railroad Union Pacific and third-party logistics services provider Katoen Natie will set up a new transload service in Dallas for plastic pellet producers to export overseas.    Class I railroad Union Pacific and third-party logistics services provider Katoen Natie will set up a new “Dallas to Dock” service for plastic pellet producers in the Gulf to export overseas.
   The Dallas to Dock service transports plastic pellets in railed hopper cars from the Gulf region to Dallas, where they are packaged and transferred into intermodal containers. The containers then travel to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach via UP’s intermodal service.
   One reason for the moving product to Dallas and out through the West Coast is that Dallas has nine times the container supply than Houston, according to the UP.
   To support the Dallas to Dock service, a plastic packaging facility will be constructed at the Prime Pointe Industrial Park, a 3,000-acre rail served industrial property located in South Dallas County. Next door to UP’s Dallas Intermodal Terminal (DIT), the facility will have about 500,000 square feet of warehouse space with railroad access. The facility is scheduled for completion in the third quarter of 2017, and will mark the fifteenth North American operation for Katoen Natie.
   “The new plastic packaging facility is strategically located in Dallas to align with empty container availability and our premier intermodal service to the West Coast for export,” said Beth Whited, Union Pacific’s vice president of chemicals. “Our expedited intermodal service offers four-day transit to the West Coast ports.”
   Union Pacific also offers international intermodal service between Dallas and Houston.
   Frank Vingerhoets, president of Katoen Natie USA, said the location “provides our customers flexibility for their Far East export needs out of the U.S. Gulf.”