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I have been tracking my truck via the CSX tracker. A couple hours ago it arrived at Fort Madison, IA. I had found a webcam for that rail station and was able to watch the train with my truck roll through using the time stamp given on the call. Pretty cool...
A rail yard Webcam, I never even thought to look for that. That's genius.
Several times in the past few years I have blazed a path into another dimension, a dimension not traveled by others, a bizarre dimension of chaos and disorder in the Land of Lincoln only decipherable to the lunatics that run this state. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!.......of Illinois.
So I called my dealer this morning and asked for detailed status on where exactly is my truck. They said "uhhhh we're not sure"......I said "WTF.....you had better get sure.....fast" For the past week, it's supposedly been sitting in a freight yard in Elwood IL waiting for Jack Cooper Trucking to pick it up. The dealer ran another VVR today and kept getting an error message. Took them all day back and forth with Ford, CSX Railroad, and Jack Cooper Trucking. Jack Cooper said it was at their facility in Elwood IL......nope....it's not. They finally got it figured out on the computer system, and where is my truck?........delivered yesterday afternoon to a Canadian Northern rail yard in Markham IL ?!!?!? I mean heck, an $80K truck only 50 miles from where anyone knew where it was supposed to be is close enough for government work....right?
The VVR is in exception status because it was supposed to be shipped via rail on CSX and instead got loaded onto a CN train. Ford has no idea why or how my truck got to the CN facility on the other side of Chicago, but my dealership owner personally got involved verified that my truck is in fact sitting in a Markham IL freight yard and is a-ok. They are trying to get it picked up for delivery tomorrow.....Monday at the latest.
Several times in the past few years I have blazed a path into another dimension, a dimension not traveled by others, a bizarre dimension of chaos and disorder in the Land of Lincoln only decipherable to the lunatics that run this state. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!.......of Illinois.
So I called my dealer this morning and asked for detailed status on where exactly is my truck. They said "uhhhh we're not sure"......I said "WTF.....you had better get sure.....fast" For the past week, it's supposedly been sitting in a freight yard in Elwood IL waiting for Jack Cooper Trucking to pick it up. The dealer ran another VVR today and kept getting an error message. Took them all day back and forth with Ford, CSX Railroad, and Jack Cooper Trucking. Jack Cooper said it was at their facility in Elwood IL......nope....it's not. They finally got it figured out on the computer system, and where is my truck?........delivered yesterday afternoon to a Canadian Northern rail yard in Markham IL ?!!?!? I mean heck, an $80K truck only 50 miles from where anyone knew where it was supposed to be is close enough for government work....right?
The VVR is in exception status because it was supposed to be shipped via rail on CSX and instead got loaded onto a CN train. Ford has no idea why or how my truck got to the CN facility on the other side of Chicago, but my dealership owner personally got involved verified that my truck is in fact sitting in a Markham IL freight yard and is a-ok. They are trying to get it picked up for delivery tomorrow.....Monday at the latest.
I think this stuff only happens to me.......LOL.
It’s just maddening sometimes… like it’s a widget from Amazon instead of an 80k truck …. I’m convinced that my and Oregon Tremor’s trucks are being driven to school buy a couple of puck high school kids in Louisville, and ford can’t “find” them to stinking get them shipped!!! Oh…. And yours too tharper1445. . . .
Just saw on the MachE tracker that my truck had been delivered! I had a call from the dealership today as well ensuring everything was in place and that all the accessories I wanted will be added. Should have it by the end of next week! Woohoo!!!
A rail yard Webcam, I never even thought to look for that. That's genius.
I was able to see it via two different webcams on its way. Now that it's going through Kansas, I don't think there is another cam during its journey. That being said, the train will be going through my town on its way to the yard so I think I'll go and take a look, snap a picture. As silly as it sounds, it at least tempers my anticipation at this point lol.
After the car it was on sat for 10 days due to a mechanical failure, I get pretty excited about tracking it now haha.
It's good to see others getting a smooth and routine delivery. I ended up having a long and interesting conversation with the dealers "Inventory Mgr". This guy has 10 full and part-time people reporting to him and his only job is getting vehicles to and from their various dealerships. Internet sales, delivery, picking up, ferrying, shuttling, retails orders, stock orders, etc. Interesting to hear how all this works. He said the vehicle oem's have kept increasing the delivery charges while negotiating lower and lower rates with the various rail and trucking companies.......a huge source of extra profit given the volumes of vehicles they ship.
I know in my business that "non-priority" shipment routing is much cheaper than direct scheduling shortest path routing, especially with the effect covid-19 has had on supply chain logistics. Rail and trucking companies have core routes with a lot of resources, so routing shipments that follow those routes is more efficient even though the distance traveled might be longer......much longer in some cases. Similar to Fedex SmartPost. I've bought items on ebay shipped via SmartPost that traveled 1000 miles to go 500......this might not make sense to some, but, the economies of freight volume moving in certain ways is cheaper.
In any case, the interesting thing here is that the nearest Canadian National rail terminal to KTP is Memphis!! So how did my truck get onto a CN train? Turns out my truck was first loaded at KTP onto a Norfolk and Southern train where it traveled south to Chattanooga, then east to Memphis where it was unloaded and then reloaded onto a Canadian National train north to Chicago.......about 1200 miles or so. Add another 150 miles south on I-55 to my Dealer. My dealer is 300 interstate highway miles from KTP.
The dealer inventory guy said Canadian National and Norfolk Southern Railroads knew where my truck was the entire time. All rail cars have RFID tags that are paired with the vehicle vin#. Rail cars are part of a train manifest and are scanned by track side sensors multiple times en-route for tracking and freight car routing and management. Ford's computer system apparently doesn't update until 24 hours after the vehicle is grounded. Knowing all this, it seems like it would still be cheaper and more efficient to just ship OTR direct to the dealer. Oh well, I'm sure there is a corporate bean counter at FoMoCo with a spreadsheet that says otherwise.
I find logistics like this interesting and other than somewhat poor communication and status updates, no major complaints. That a vehicle can travel such a complicated 1300 mile route in 7-days.......tip my hat to all the railroad and trucking boys out there doing a good job!!
It's good to see others getting a smooth and routine delivery. I ended up having a long and interesting conversation with the dealers "Inventory Mgr". This guy has 10 full and part-time people reporting to him and his only job is getting vehicles to and from their various dealerships. Internet sales, delivery, picking up, ferrying, shuttling, retails orders, stock orders, etc. Interesting to hear how all this works. He said the vehicle oem's have kept increasing the delivery charges while negotiating lower and lower rates with the various rail and trucking companies.......a huge source of extra profit given the volumes of vehicles they ship.
I know in my business that "non-priority" shipment routing is much cheaper than direct scheduling shortest path routing, especially with the effect covid-19 has had on supply chain logistics. Rail and trucking companies have core routes with a lot of resources, so routing shipments that follow those routes is more efficient even though the distance traveled might be longer......much longer in some cases. Similar to Fedex SmartPost. I've bought items on ebay shipped via SmartPost that traveled 1000 miles to go 500......this might not make sense to some, but, the economies of freight volume moving in certain ways is cheaper.
In any case, the interesting thing here is that the nearest Canadian National rail terminal to KTP is Memphis!! So how did my truck get onto a CN train? Turns out my truck was first loaded at KTP onto a Norfolk and Southern train where it traveled south to Chattanooga, then east to Memphis where it was unloaded and then reloaded onto a Canadian National train north to Chicago.......about 1200 miles or so. Add another 150 miles south on I-55 to my Dealer. My dealer is 300 interstate highway miles from KTP.
The dealer inventory guy said Canadian National and Norfolk Southern Railroads knew where my truck was the entire time. All rail cars have RFID tags that are paired with the vehicle vin#. Rail cars are part of a train manifest and are scanned by track side sensors multiple times en-route for tracking and freight car routing and management. Ford's computer system apparently doesn't update until 24 hours after the vehicle is grounded. Knowing all this, it seems like it would still be cheaper and more efficient to just ship OTR direct to the dealer. Oh well, I'm sure there is a corporate bean counter at FoMoCo with a spreadsheet that says otherwise.
I find logistics like this interesting and other than somewhat poor communication and status updates, no major complaints. That a vehicle can travel such a complicated 1300 mile route in 7-days.......tip my hat to all the railroad and trucking boys out there doing a good job!!
Norfolk & Southern Map
Canadian National Map
Did a whole rail car get mis‐routed, or was your truck loaded into the wrong car?
I was patiently (well kind of) waiting for my 2022 to be built and delivered. That changed last night. A nice lady who was highly intoxicated hit my truck which was parked in my driveway. There went my nice one owner, low miles, clean carfax sale/trade in. We were getting ready to leave on a trip so the trailer was attached. No apparent damage to the trailer but the truck is inoperable.
Did a whole rail car get mis‐routed, or was your truck loaded into the wrong car?
Somebody at KTP changed the railcar loading manifest at the last minute and Ford's system did not update properly. I can almost guarantee this was caused by some last second BS related to getting a train into the Chicago Elwood Intermodal Hub. Like I said earlier, my company avoids shipping through Illinois at all costs and I don't blame FoMoCo at all for the last minute change. They are simply trying to get vehicles from point A to point B and if last-camel-out-of-Baghdad routing gets vehicles to where they need to go.......fine with me.
Ford system tracking showed CSX for transpo, CSX and Jack Cooper had the vin#, but no corresponding RFID tag# for the railcar = error on the manifest. With Mainframe IT systems railcar scheduling manifests would be batch uploaded from FoMoCo in advance to the railroads who also run Mainframe systems. Again, some of these are not real-time systems, and updates take time, so last minute scheduling/route changes would result in errors that take time to clear. Had I not asked for a VVR again yesterday, the error would likely have cleared during weekend batch processing and by Monday system updates would have showed correct vehicle status for my truck. Customers are such a PIA.
Dealer guy said once they were talking to the right railroads, the CN and NS railroad guys were like "ya we got it, it's at so and so, whats the big deal?".....LOL.
For some perspective, railroads can move 1-ton of freight 500 miles on 1-gallon of diesel fuel. Trucks can move 1-ton of freight 130 miles on 1-gallon of diesel fuel.
Fuel Consumption Calculations
7,000lb/3.5 ton truck traveling 1200 miles over rail: 7000/2000*(1200/500)*$3/gallon = $25 of diesel fuel cost (8.4 gallons)
7,000lb/3.5 ton truck traveling the last 150 miles to the dealer by OTR truck: 7000/2000*(150/130)*$3/gallon = $12 of diesel fuel cost (4 gallons)
A total of 12.5 gallons of diesel fuel was burned costing $37 to get my truck from KTP to my dealer.
Comparative Truck/Rail Shipping rates
Based on current average ton/mile rates, I could ship 7,000lbs 1200 miles via rail for around $250. The last 150 miles via truck would cost around $100 with full trailer loadout.
Given the current truck driver shortages and fuel cost surcharges, it cost FoMoCo under $500 to deliver my truck to the local dealer @ 1300 total miles traveled due to idiocy uniquely related to being in Illinois.
LA is 2000 miles from KTP, Seattle is 2300 miles from KTP, and Boston is 1000 miles from KTP......so the west coast is a bit further and most of the east coast is closer than my truck traveled.
We all pay $1700 for shipping and delivery so need to worry that Ford is more than covering their cost.
well I guess I will soon be removed from the 2022 Tracking Spreadsheet. I am now number 2 on the list ( in row 3 ).
I remember when I was about 185 on the list and just “in order processing”. Seems like a year ago. My truck is at my dealer waiting for me to pick it up after Labor Day.
Best of luck to all those of you still on the list waiting for something to change.
wanted to say a big Thank You to Phoenixfla for all his work on the spreadsheet. I know I would have gone crazy without it.
Thank You so much for the work on the spreadsheet. Not gonna lie I have been stalking it everyday. The info on the spreadsheet is very accurate. Got an email from Ford at 3:34 am that my truck was built. I would buy you a case of beer of your choosing if you were in the mitten.
I was able to see it via two different webcams on its way.
@deerhunt799 Could you share any tips for finding railroad webcams? I've tried Googling the names of various cities on the route along with "railroad webcam" and I'm not getting any successful finds. Is there a web site dedicated to railroad webcams somewhere?
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