Rail Rate Checker

Increase Your Ability to Control Rail Expenses and Increase Market Share

Are your rail rates reasonable?

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Rate Benchmarking: Determine Reasonable Rates for Your Movements

To determine a reasonable benchmark rate for your movement there are some characteristics about your movements that you must understand. These are what the railroad’s variable cost is for the movement, the rail profit for your move versus competitors and how your rate stacks up to competitors in the marketplace. These questions can be answered in less than 30 seconds for any movement with just a few user inputs.

Don’t just take our word for it…

“Rail Rate Checker paid for itself in no time. It makes it easy to demonstrate where rail rates are too high and to support the rate levels we need for our traffic.”

“Rail Rate Checker provides valuable intelligence that helps keep us competitive in our markets. It is used extensively during contract negotiations as it lets us benchmark our rates to competitors’ for our markets.”

“Rail Rate Checker is a must for my rate negotiations. The visibility and insight it offers, provides the certainty needed to explain to the railroads what I need and why. Believe me, RRC pays itself many times over!”

“Rail Rate Checker is easy to use, it’s logical and all of my questions are answered thoroughly. The program is great for strategic planning and is thoroughly supported by Escalation Consultants.”

“Rail Rate Checker allows rail customers to become ‘informed consumers. It provides a database based upon accurate information provided by both the railroads and the Surface Transportation Board.”

“Rail Rate checker is easy to use and provides the movement specific costs and rate benchmarks I need to improve negotiations with railroads.”

“We use Rail Rate Checker and find it is extremely beneficial.”

“Escalation Consultants provide two indispensable things for rail shippers – one is an approach that helps take tension out of the negotiation process and two, a source of workable solutions to help you get the rate you need to expand your business.”

“Rail Rate Checker is a great quick and easy way to determine rates that are reasonable for my movements.  It allows me to be much more proactive with my railroads by educating them on the rates I need.”

Calculate railroads cost,
profit, and RVCs

Railroad’s Variable Cost and Revenue to Variable Cost Ratios (RVC) are calculated to determine the profit railroads make from your moves in relation to all captive and competitive railroad moves of your commodity.

Rail Cost Control - Educate Railroads

Market Data

In order to obtain reasonable rates, you must first know what reasonable rates are for your moves. Rail Rate Checker gives you access to the largest database of rail rates that exist and not only shows competing rates for your moves, but also the volume of traffic into your markets and where traffic in your markets originates.

Rail Rate Checker then shows how rates and carloads in your markets have changed over time.

Commodities by Railroad (CBR)

The CBR has need to know information for strategic planning as it provides the business model for each commodity on each railroad. The database shows how rates have changed in relation to competitors and highlights opportunities to grow revenue for both shippers and their railroads. CBR is a must have database for effective strategic planning.

SEC Filings and Escalation

The SEC database provides the big picture for what is driving rail rates. Revenue, expense, and volume information from all Class 1 Railroads SEC filings is maintained over time and compared against inflation, trucking and railroad averages to make educated macro decisions.

Weekly Rail Carloads (WRC)

The WRC database shows how rail carloads for major commodity groups are changing in real-time. Shipper’s carloads are more important when a carrier’s volumes decrease but as a carrier’s volumes increase the reverse is true. The WRC keeps you current on the change in railroad’s volumes.

Calculate Routes and Miles for Your Movements

Rail Rate Checker gives you access to PC*Miler, the industry leading tool for determining route options and rail mileage, Trimble Maps (formerly ALK). Whether you are looking to find the best potential route for new or existing moves, verify fuel surcharge miles, or the distance to a potential transload site, the mileage calculator gives you quick easy access to the information you need on your moves.

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Escalation Consultants has been serving railroad customers since 1979.

The Rail Cost Control Program is an Escalation Consultants Inc. product. For the last 40 years Escalation Consultants has assisted companies in reducing the delivered cost of their products. We are normally involved with large and small rail shippers in reducing rail expenses on more than a billion dollars in rail spend annually.

Escalation Consultants has spent decades developing tools that automatically seek out and quantify opportunities for reducing rail expenses. The RCC contains these tools and they allow you to look at your movements differently in order to create more cost-effective negotiations with railroads.

To learn about Escalation Consultants Inc, more visit www.EscalationConsultants.com

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Contact Info

4 Professional Drive, Suite 129
Gaithersburg, MD 20879

info@railcostcontrol.com
301-977-7459 

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