Intermodal Terms.

Freight that moves in one container or trailer by more than one mode, usually rail and truck, without the freight itself being handled between them.

Chicago is where the railroads from the East and the West meet, so a container often reaches the city on one railroad and leaves on another, or on a truck.

The truck move of a container between a rail ramp or a marine terminal and a customer door, a warehouse or a yard.

Most containers that come into Chicago by rail start or finish their trip on a drayage truck.

A container moved by truck from one railroad's terminal to another railroad's terminal in the same city, so it can continue its trip by rail. Also called an x town.

Containers changing between an eastern railroad (Norfolk Southern, CSX) and a western one (BNSF, Union Pacific) in Chicago often cross town by truck.

A railroad's intermodal terminal, where containers and trailers are lifted on and off trains and handed to trucks.

Cushing pulls containers from 15 ramps around Chicago and Joliet; they are the railroads' terminals, not Cushing's.

The long distance part of an intermodal move: the train ride between the origin terminal and the destination terminal.

A container whose line haul ends in Chicago still needs a truck to reach the dock, or a crosstown to reach the next railroad.

Trailer on flatcar: a highway trailer carried on a rail car.

Some Chicago ramps handle trailers as well as containers; most intermodal freight now moves in containers.

A container carried on a rail car, often stacked two high in a well car, which the trade calls double stack.

At the ramp the container comes off the train and goes onto a chassis for the drive.

A company that arranges intermodal moves for shippers: it buys the rail line haul from the railroad and the drayage at each end from trucking companies.

An IMC with a container on a Chicago ramp tenders the drayage to a carrier such as Cushing.

The importer or exporter that owns the goods, as opposed to the forwarder, the IMC or the carrier moving them.

A BCO can tender its own Chicago drayage or let its IMC or forwarder arrange it.

Domestic containers are 53 feet long and stay in North America. International containers, 20, 40 or 45 feet long, belong to ocean carriers and travel by ship.

Both come through Chicago's ramps; many international containers reach Chicago by rail from the coastal ports.

The wheeled frame a container sits on for the road. The tractor pulls the chassis and the container rides on it.

The containers Cushing moves ride on Cushing's own chassis.

A move where the chassis has to be picked up or returned at a different place from the container, which adds a stop.

A container that is off the train, released and ready at the terminal for a truck to collect.

A container that is still on the train is not available yet, however close it is to Chicago.

The last day a container can sit at the terminal before storage charges begin.

Dispatch watches the last free day on every container it is moving.

The days allowed before charges start: storage while the container sits at the terminal, or per diem on the equipment once it has left.

Charges for a container left at the terminal after its free time. Railroads usually call it storage; at ocean ports it is usually called demurrage.

Daily charges for keeping the equipment owner's container or chassis outside the terminal past its free time, sometimes called detention.

Using an emptied import container for an export load without first returning it to the terminal, with the equipment owner's approval. It saves an empty trip.

The terminal's gate transactions for a truck coming in or going out with equipment. The gate records the container, the chassis and their condition on an interchange receipt.

A time window some terminals require for a pickup or a drop off.

A trip that ends without the pickup or the delivery, for example because the container was not available or the dock was not ready.

A tractor driving without a chassis or a trailer.

A load of hazardous materials that must display placards and move under the federal hazardous materials rules.

Cushing holds a current PHMSA hazardous materials registration; it is on the Documents page.

The Uniform Intermodal Interchange and Facilities Access Agreement: the standard contract under which a trucking company takes ocean carriers' and railroads' equipment. Carriers in it are called participants.

Cushing is a UIIA motor carrier participant.