It cost less to lease than to transport empty trailers. Some areas of the country get more trailers than they ship back. By leasing trailers, UPS is able to adjust to volume fluctuations in the system. For example, say NYC sends 7 trailers to LA. They could use 7 UPS trailers. If LA were to send 10 trailers back to NYC, they could send back those 7 trailers and 3 leased trailers. Once in NYC, they could send them elsewhere or dump them.How come UPS uses alot of trailers that dont say UPS and are white? Some say XTRA lease why would they lease or buy any?
we own the fstz and cfkz trailers too. For the most part the railroad got out of the leasing business. There are a few spots where they still rent them out but not many.
we own the fstz and cfkz trailers too. For the most part the railroad got out of the leasing business. There are a few spots where they still rent them out but not many.
We do all the inspections and repairs on the fstz and cfkz trailers. If a gray box is broke at the rail yard they are allowed to repair them to get them going....Then why do we inspect our grey boxes, but contract out the fstz/cfkz etc inspections?
And if they're all ours, why will the railyard mechanics fix the grey boxes, but not the fstzs?
If they're all ours, wouldn't they be treated the same?
We do all the inspections and repairs on the fstz and cfkz trailers. If a gray box is broke at the rail yard they are allowed to repair them to get them going....
To those not familiar with railroad terminology, letters like FSTZ, CFKZ, etc. are reporting marks used to identify ownership of equipment used on railroads.
Marks that end in Z denote that the equipment is a trailer. Marks that end in U denote a container.
Since I am a railroad buff I have researched who owns the trailers associated with the reporting marks on our trailers. I have found that:
UPSZ; quite obviously UPS.
MARZ; Martrac, a UPS company.
FSTZ; Fastrac. I believe tieguy is correct in stating that UPS has ownership in this company.
SCSZ; Supply Chain Solutions. This sounds like another company we probably own.
CFKZ; XTRA. This is interesting because this is the only reporting mark that seems to be obviously owned by another company.
PKGZ; The only information I have found is that it is owned by TIP. You would think that we would own it since pkgz seems like an obvious abbreviation for package. And when I think package I think UPS .
I think bluehdmc is on to something when he states that we are probably into long term leasing arrangements on some of these trailers. TIP and XTRA would most likely be our partners in these arrangements since they are huge leasing companies.
I also think tieguy is correct in that the railroads have for the most part got out of the trailer leasing business. Though they do lease container/chassis to us on occasion as the CSX boxes I see in our yards attest to.