Transload facilities and transloading services in the U.S.

A transload facility is a rail-served site where freight is moved between railcars and trucks. It has the track, the transfer equipment and the truck access, so a shipper or receiver can use rail for the long haul without a rail spur of their own. This page lists 2,785 rail transload locations across 71 U.S. states, Canadian provinces and Mexican states, browsable by state and city.

Transloading services are what happens at that site: rail-to-truck and truck-to-rail transfer, dry bulk handling (conveyors, pneumatic transfer, dump pits), liquid bulk handling (pumps, tank storage, heated transfer), break-bulk handling of steel, lumber and paper, short or long-term storage, and truck loadout with scale tickets. Not every facility does all of it; the directory records the commodities and capabilities each operator publishes.

How a shipper uses one: the railcar is billed to the transload facility instead of to your dock. The operator unloads it into storage or straight into trucks, and the product covers the last 25–75 miles by road. Outbound works in reverse: trucks bring product to the facility, it is loaded into railcars there, and rail carries the long haul. No siding, no track agreement, no railcar spotting at your site.

Where Steel Wheel Logistics fits: we do not own terminals. We are the rail department for shippers who do not have one. We find the facility that actually handles your commodity, and price and coordinate the move with the railroad and the operator. Details on the rail transload services page.

Find a transload facility near you

Every facility below sits on a state page with the operator name, city, published commodities and capabilities, and a phone number where one is published. Want to filter across all regions at once? Use the Transload Directory tool.

Browse by state and province

United States 2,652 facilities

• Alabama 69
• Alaska 11
• Arizona 33
• Arkansas 36
• California 150
• Colorado 50
• Connecticut 18
• Delaware 20
• Florida 82
• Georgia 104
• Idaho 9
• Illinois 119
• Indiana 85
• Iowa 59
• Kansas 25
• Kentucky 37
• Louisiana 89
• Maine 18
• Maryland 31
• Massachusetts 48
• Michigan 69
• Minnesota 66
• Mississippi 35
• Missouri 63
• Montana 17
• Nebraska 20
• Nevada 13
• New Hampshire 11
• New Jersey 78
• New Mexico 20
• New York 87
• North Carolina 86
• North Dakota 29
• Ohio 133
• Oklahoma 46
• Oregon 52
• Pennsylvania 151
• Rhode Island 5
• South Carolina 50
• South Dakota 7
• Tennessee 72
• Texas 183
• Utah 28
• Vermont 16
• Virginia 52
• Washington 68
• West Virginia 31
• Wisconsin 55
• Wyoming 16

Canada 92 facilities

• Alberta 23
• British Columbia 17
• Manitoba 5
• New Brunswick 3
• Newfoundland and Labrador 2
• Nova Scotia 2
• Ontario 18
• Quebec 12
• Saskatchewan 10

Mexico 36 facilities

• Baja California 1
• Estado de Mexico 4
• Guanajuato 3
• Hidalgo 4
• Jalisco 2
• Mexico City 1
• Michoacan 1
• Nuevo Leon 9
• Queretaro 2
• San Luis Potosi 6
• Sonora 1
• Tamaulipas 1
• Veracruz 1

Browse by railroad

• Norfolk Southern 569
• BNSF Railway 535
• CSX Transportation 399
• Union Pacific 394
• Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) 194
• Genesee & Wyoming short lines 174
• Canadian National (CN) 162
• New Orleans Public Belt Railroad 20
• Portland & Western Railroad 20
• Florida East Coast Railway 20
• Conrail Shared Assets Operations 19
• Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad 19
• Providence and Worcester Railroad 17
• New England Central Railroad 15
• Paducah & Louisville Railway 14
• Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad 14
• Port Terminal Railroad Association (Houston) 12
• Terminal Railway Alabama State Docks 12
• Pacific Harbor Line 12
• Delmarva Central Railroad 12
• Iowa Interstate Railroad 11
• Alaska Railroad 11
• Louisville & Indiana Railroad 11
• San Joaquin Valley Railroad 10
• Tacoma Rail 10
• Progressive Rail 10
• Indiana & Ohio Railway 10
• New York, Susquehanna & Western Railway 10
• Wisconsin & Southern Railroad 10
• Arkansas Midland Railroad 9
• Lake State Railway 9
• New York & Atlantic Railway 9
• Columbus & Ohio River Rail Road 8
• Missouri & Northern Arkansas Railroad 8
• Vermont Railway 8
• Massachusetts Coastal Railroad 8
• Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railroad 8

Browse by commodity

• Acids 267
• Asphalt 33
• Dry Chemicals 372
• Dry Food Products 368
• Frac Sand 253
• Liquid Chemicals 384
• Liquid Food Products 287
• Lumber and Forest Products 689
• Minerals and Dry Bulk 668
• Petroleum Products 372
• Plastic Pellets and Resin 534
• Steel and Metals 593

Largest transload markets

New Orleans, LA (23) · Memphis, TN (22) · Stockton, CA (21) · Baltimore, MD (20) · Kansas City, MO (20) · Tacoma, WA (19) · Houston, TX (16) · Chicago, IL (14) · Mobile, AL (14) · Jacksonville, FL (12) · Salt Lake City, UT (12) · Bakersfield, CA (11) · Buffalo, NY (11) · Cincinnati, OH (11) · Phoenix, AZ (11)

Port transload terminals

63 of the listed facilities are port terminals: vessel-to-rail and rail-to-vessel transfer for bulk, break-bulk and boxed cargo, usually with on-dock or near-dock track. Cities with port terminals in the directory:

Baltimore, MD (6) · New Orleans, LA (6) · Houston, TX (4) · Philadelphia, PA (4) · Wilmington, NC (4) · Mobile, AL (3) · Tampa, FL (3) · Galveston, TX (2) · Jacksonville, FL (2) · Palmetto, FL (2) · Portland, OR (2) · Arabi, LA (1) · Beaumont, TX (1) · Brunswick, GA (1) · Camden, NJ (1) · Charleston, SC (1) · Chesapeake, VA (1) · Cleveland, OH (1) · Duluth, MN (1) · Eddystone, PA (1) · Fernandina Beach, FL (1) · Granite City, IL (1) · Gulfport, MS (1) · Harvey, LA (1) · Lake Charles, LA (1) · Longview, WA (1) · Milwaukee, WI (1) · Morehead City, NC (1) · Newport News, VA (1) · Pascagoula, MS (1) · Port Arthur, TX (1) · Portage, IN (1) · Stockton, CA (1) · Toledo, OH (1) · Vancouver, WA (1) · Wilmington, DE (1)

See all port terminals on the map · U.S. ports for inland rail freight · Need indoor storage on rail instead? See the rail-served warehouse directory. Car needs repair, cleaning or requalification? See the railcar repair and service shop directory.

Listings are compiled from published and public sources and are provided for reference. Steel Wheel Logistics does not own or operate these facilities, and a listing does not imply a commercial relationship. Confirm capabilities and availability directly with the operator. Commodity lists here are not exhaustive. Some are drawn from railroad network directories that record broad categories, and many operators publish nothing at all — an empty or short list means we have no record, not that the facility cannot handle your freight. If your commodity is not shown, ask them, or ask us and we will find out.

How transloading works

1. Pick the facility. Close enough to the origin or destination that the truck leg stays short, on a railroad that reaches your other end, with the equipment your commodity needs (pneumatic for pellets and cement, conveyor or dump pit for aggregates, pumps for liquids, cranes or forklifts for steel and lumber).
2. Bill the rail leg to the facility. The railcar moves from origin to the transload site’s track under the facility’s name, with your product on the waybill. For an outbound move the facility is the origin instead.
3. Transfer. The operator unloads the railcar into storage (silo, tank, warehouse, pad) or straight into waiting trucks. Straight-to-truck is cheapest but needs trucks lined up the day the car arrives.
4. Store if needed. Most facilities include a few free days, then charge storage. Holding product in the railcar instead runs up railroad demurrage, which is the expensive way to store anything; the demurrage calculator shows the exposure.
5. Truck loadout and delivery. Trucks are loaded, weighed and ticketed at the facility, then run the last miles to the consignee. Either you arrange the trucks or the facility does; agree on that before the first car ships.

What transloading costs

A transload move has three cost parts: the rail line-haul to the transload point, the facility’s handling fee, and the truck leg to the final destination. Our Transloading course module teaches the math with these working ranges: a handling fee of roughly $15–$35 per ton depending on commodity, a truck leg at $3–$5 per loaded mile over a typical 25–75 miles (priced per truck, not per ton), and all-truck at roughly $0.12–$0.20 per ton-mile for comparison. Those are teaching figures and indicative only; every facility quotes its own rate.

What moves the handling fee: the commodity (free-flowing grain is cheaper to handle than sticky or hazardous product), the equipment it needs (a pneumatic blower or a heated tank costs more per hour than a front-end loader), storage days beyond the free period, and the truck leg (distance, and whether the facility can load trucks fast enough to keep them moving). Run the rail side through the Rail Rate Quote tool, compare the whole lane with the rail-vs-truck calculator, and read transloading vs. direct rail for when the answer is “just truck it.”

Transload truck loadout

Truck loadout is the last step at the facility: product goes from the railcar or from storage into the truck, gets weighed, and leaves with a scale ticket. The equipment sets the pace. Pneumatic loadout for pellets, cement and fly ash blows product into a dry-bulk trailer; aggregates and grain load by conveyor, loadout spout or front-end loader into dump or hopper trailers; liquids pump into tank trailers; steel and lumber lift by crane or forklift onto flatbeds. A facility that loads out 40 trucks a day empties a 100-ton railcar in a morning; one that loads out eight leaves the car sitting, and that shows up as demurrage or storage.

Before committing a lane, ask the operator four things: loadout hours and whether they take appointments, trucks per hour for your commodity, whether there is a certified scale on site, and whether they arrange the trucks or you do. The answers decide the real cost of the truck leg and how many railcars you can push through the facility in a week. We ask those questions for every facility we shortlist.