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CNN Live Today
Shipping Out
Aired December 18, 2002 - 10:53 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, there are only six more shopping days until Christmas, but the apex of the shipping days have arrived already. Today is called the business delivery day of the holiday season, and no place is busier than the sprawling UPS facility in Hodgkins, Illinois. That's busiest shipping center in the world, believe it or not, and that's where we find our CNN Chicago bureau chief Jeff Flock this morning.
Hey, Jeff, how's it shaping up out there.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Leon, hello to you and Daryn, you know, I'll tell you, it must be this hour, I picked this hour to come outside because I'm with you out guys out here in the weather, it's raining. Perhaps you can see behind me, this is one of the loading operations, this is one of their big UPS trailers that's getting put on a flatbed truck. I want to show you a little more of that up close and personal in just a second. But first, show you how big this facility is, indeed.
As you report, largest package shipping facility, sorting facility, in the world. It's just a sprawling hub outside Chicago. If you ship anything into the northern half of the country, pretty much, it's coming through here, one way or the other.
And inside, of course, 65 miles of conveyor belts, which send your holiday package along the way, and this and tomorrow the two busiest days of the year.
I'm with Alan Copeland.
Alan, you manage, what, the rail operations here in the yard?
ALAN COPELAND, TERMINAL MANAGER: Right, the intermodal operations here at Willow Springs. What we're doing now is loading trailers for our Willow Springs north bay train for UPS facilities outside of Oakland.
FLOCK: This guy just popped that right on there pretty easily.
COPELAND: Yes, it takes about a minute to make sure it's clamped properly, and then locked in the hitch, and go right on to the next unit.
FLOCK: Now we're told about 1,500 packages in each of these trailers, and how long is this train?
COPELAND: This train should be about 5,000 feet, probably, just about 95 trailers going to their North Bay facility.
FLOCK: And I'm told this is, what, a very fast train. You could drive these trailers out there, but why do you put them on the train?
COPELAND: We put them on a train, it gets there faster, and the whole train gets there at once, you don't to have wait for individual drivers.
FLOCK: Copy that.
Now I have another thing I want to show the viewers. Obviously,. this is where they wound up after the sort. We have got a camera inside that we've been calling conveyor-belt cam. It is a live camera we put it on one of the boxes, and it kind of gives you a sense of what it is like to be a box, and actually, they treat them pretty well. I'm almost surprised. I would have thought that they bounced around a little more.
COPELAND: Very soft landing. We have soft landing devices on all our cranes, and picks them up and just lays them softly on the rail car.
FLOCK: That's what we want this time of year. Don't want those beautiful, lovely crystal vases to not make it there in one piece.
That's the latest from here, outside Chicago.
Leon, Daryn, wish you were here.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 18, 2002 - 10:53 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, there are only six more shopping days until Christmas, but the apex of the shipping days have arrived already. Today is called the business delivery day of the holiday season, and no place is busier than the sprawling UPS facility in Hodgkins, Illinois. That's busiest shipping center in the world, believe it or not, and that's where we find our CNN Chicago bureau chief Jeff Flock this morning.
Hey, Jeff, how's it shaping up out there.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Leon, hello to you and Daryn, you know, I'll tell you, it must be this hour, I picked this hour to come outside because I'm with you out guys out here in the weather, it's raining. Perhaps you can see behind me, this is one of the loading operations, this is one of their big UPS trailers that's getting put on a flatbed truck. I want to show you a little more of that up close and personal in just a second. But first, show you how big this facility is, indeed.
As you report, largest package shipping facility, sorting facility, in the world. It's just a sprawling hub outside Chicago. If you ship anything into the northern half of the country, pretty much, it's coming through here, one way or the other.
And inside, of course, 65 miles of conveyor belts, which send your holiday package along the way, and this and tomorrow the two busiest days of the year.
I'm with Alan Copeland.
Alan, you manage, what, the rail operations here in the yard?
ALAN COPELAND, TERMINAL MANAGER: Right, the intermodal operations here at Willow Springs. What we're doing now is loading trailers for our Willow Springs north bay train for UPS facilities outside of Oakland.
FLOCK: This guy just popped that right on there pretty easily.
COPELAND: Yes, it takes about a minute to make sure it's clamped properly, and then locked in the hitch, and go right on to the next unit.
FLOCK: Now we're told about 1,500 packages in each of these trailers, and how long is this train?
COPELAND: This train should be about 5,000 feet, probably, just about 95 trailers going to their North Bay facility.
FLOCK: And I'm told this is, what, a very fast train. You could drive these trailers out there, but why do you put them on the train?
COPELAND: We put them on a train, it gets there faster, and the whole train gets there at once, you don't to have wait for individual drivers.
FLOCK: Copy that.
Now I have another thing I want to show the viewers. Obviously,. this is where they wound up after the sort. We have got a camera inside that we've been calling conveyor-belt cam. It is a live camera we put it on one of the boxes, and it kind of gives you a sense of what it is like to be a box, and actually, they treat them pretty well. I'm almost surprised. I would have thought that they bounced around a little more.
COPELAND: Very soft landing. We have soft landing devices on all our cranes, and picks them up and just lays them softly on the rail car.
FLOCK: That's what we want this time of year. Don't want those beautiful, lovely crystal vases to not make it there in one piece.
That's the latest from here, outside Chicago.
Leon, Daryn, wish you were here.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
