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Rail Shipping: Murphy Advantage


Handling nearly 10,000 rail cars holding between 300,000 to 900,000 tons of freight annually, makes Murphy one of the largest commercial rail transloading providers in the Upper Midwest. We have about 1.5 million square feet of storage space directly linked to rail lines throughout Minnesota and Missouri. Murphy provides our clients with distinct advantages over the competition when it comes to rail shipping and receiving. Adding our advantages to the clear benefits of rail can enhance your supply chain procedures.

Indoor Rail

The vast majority of warehouses don’t have dedicated rail spurs. Not only does Murphy have rail spurs, but the tracks enter right into our warehouses allowing for easy loading and unloading of railcars. We work with class 1 rail lines as well as short line carriers to make sure that our warehouses are easy to access and in the right locations for your distribution. Through our progressive use of indoor tracks we can unload, load and prepare freight with increased efficiency, lower costs, and on time. Our professional, tenured employees are trained to reduce damages and be accurate with correct packing and unpacking procedures.

Containers – Intermodal

If shipping right to our door isn’t possible, every single one of Murphy’s 13 operated logistics campuses are within a five mile radius of a class one rail line, making drayage easy and efficient. Due to our reputation and volume, we have quality relationships with many of the drayage companies throughout our markets helping to get quick and efficient drayage transportation to our facilities. We handle transloading, sorting, palletizing  as well as long term and short term storage for inventory brought to us in shipping containers.

Commodities

No matter the industry, Murphy is ready to help our clients. We handle more commodities than the average warehouse; food ingredients, finished goods, cans, bottles, roll paper, or industrial products including plywood and MDF board, shingles, bricks and concrete.  We also can handle product of any size and weight. Murphy’s rigging division uses their years of experience to effectively move overweight products using cranes, gantrys and blocking equipment. Once off the rail, the team specializes in heavy haul transportation with the use of tri-axle trailers.

Over the past few weeks we have discussed the benefits of rail shipping including efficiency and accuracy as well as the sustainable impact that it can have for your supply chain transportation. If you would like to learn more about our rail option see our services page or feel free to contact us!

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day!
-Murphy Team