Union Pacific informed fertilizer manufactures without advance notice that it was mandating approximately thirty shippers to reduce the volume of private cars on its railroad effective immediately. Additionally, some manufactures were told to reduce its shipments by approximately 20%. Union Pacific’s plan to start metering traffic as of today will curtail fertilizer shipments.

 

Union Pacific sent an email to customers earlier this month outlining the railroad’s goal of removing 15,000 private cars from current inventory. Union Pacific is also pulling approximately 3% of railroad-owned cars from their system. The railroad has indicated it will work with customers to avoid plant shutdowns and other potential negative impacts.

 

Non-compliance will result in the embargo of its facilities by Union Pacific. That means manufactures will be unable to accept new rail sales involving Union Pacific customers for the near future.

 

Union Pacific rail lines primarily serves key agricultural States such as Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and California.

 

Products that will be affected include nitrogen fertilizers such as urea and UAN as well as diesel exhaust fluid (DEF). 

 

Click here to view a map of all Union Pacific rail lines.   Click here to view of Union Pacific rail lines in Illinois.

 

If IFCA receives additional information on the Union Pacific rail cars issue we will let our members know.  We realize this information could not happen at a worse time for our industry.