Pete Baumhefner spends a lot of his time working around trains. He’s the Assistant Vice President of Stacktrain Operations for Pacer Stacktrain. In fact, he’s spent most of his career working around trains: 15 years handling stacktrain operations with shipping company APL before Pacer Stacktrain purchased APL’s stacktrain operation; and, before that, 15 years with Southern Pacific Railroad. Pete’s knowledge of trains is why he is now responsible for reviewing the operations of 450 train services that operate on the railroads that support Pacer Stacktrain service.

A stacktrain is, quite simply, a train on which cargo containers are stacked — two to a car — to be transported over land. Stacktrains were first developed by APL during the 1980s as an efficient and cost-effective way to move cargo long distances by rail. With a stacktrain, a shipping company could ship twice as many cargo containers as there were cars, a total of 100 to 120 containers per train.

The development of the stacktrain completely changed the railroad industry and the way Pete worked. With stacktrains, more than ever before, the railroad has become a link in a global transportation network that includes ships, cranes, and trucks. Stacktrain technology means that a cargo container can be unloaded from a ship at the port, placed directly on a train car, and then hurried off to its final destination.

Pete works with Pacer Stacktrain’s customers as well as with the railroads that operate the trains to make sure that stacktrain service operates well. It doesn’t do any good to have a sophisticated global transportation network if it doesn’t work!

Find out what Pete does when a train due in Los Angeles is late. Download the case study and help him solve the problem!