Getting Started Shipping by Rail

We are here to make shipping by rail easy and convenient.

How do you order railcars? How long will they take to arrive? How much product can a railcar hold? How much does it cost to ship a container by rail? We can answer all of these questions and any others our shippers may have.

If your business is looking to ship by rail, the most important details we’ll need to know are:

- The commodity
- The volume of product to be shipped (in tons)
- The origin and destination of the shipment
- If the business is short-term, long-term, or seasonal
- The party responsible for paying the freight

We use this information and work end-to-end with our Class-1 railroad partners to connect you with the contacts and tools you need to ship by rail.

Photo credit: Bill Kalkman

Items We Ship

  • Our team has decades of experience moving bulk grains for the poultry industry, the egg industry and the import/export grain markets.

  • Our railroad supports producers and receivers of fertilizer, plastic compounds, energy companies and other manufacturers.

  • Our team has partnerships with lumber shippers across the US and provides solutions to customers with transload and offloading needs for pole shippers and other types of lumber customers.

  • Our team provides versatile solutions for food production, processing and distribution industries, including transporting packaged products and perishables in refrigerated boxcars. We also work with third party transload providers to offer turnkey solutions for your food production and distribution needs.

  • Rail is the most accessible way to move large metals shipments, and our team works with some of the largest steel fabricators on Delmarva.

  • Whether it is large machinery or electric equipment, is here to help get your products safely from origin to destination. We have transload terminal space available on several of our rail lines for loading and unloading large and heavy dimensional loads. Dimensional load movements are subject to height and weight restrictions set by both MDDE and Class I railroad partners.

Have a question?

Click below to contact Customer Service.

Is your shipping location not directly served by rail? Let us tell you about our transload terminals at Federalsburg, Maryland and Bishop, Maryland.

With our knowledge of warehousing and transload options nationwide, we can give you door-to-door service to and from non-rail served points. The service will include the economic benefits of rail transportation, and will also utilize other modes of transportation to help reduce your costs.

Not Rail Served?

Looking for a Rail Served Site?

Click below to view MDDE Real Estate.

The Maryland and Delaware Railroad Company (MDDE) is committed to being a responsible steward of the environment.

Railroads are four times more fuel efficient than trucks on average, which means that shipping goods by rail reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 75% per shipment when compared to moving the same goods by truck.

Each carload of product moved by rail removes 3-4 trucks off our congested Delmarva highways. If just 5 percent of the freight that moves by truck moved by rail instead, the national fuel savings would total approximately 800 million gallons per year.

For more information on estimating the total amount of carbon dioxide reductions that can be made by shipping goods on freight railroads, please see the Association of American Railroads Carbon Calculator.

Carload Freight:
The Green Choice

Ready to Ship with Rail?

Click below to view MDDE Shipper Tools.