These are all problems Fraser doesn’t have to worry about with Railex,

A railcar of wine could accidentally be left in switching yards, where the cars are transferred from train to train to reach their destination.

And there was no way to track the car or know where it was when a distributor called to ask about the status of an order.

Plus, the rocky ride on traditional railcars, with the cars being hooked and unhooked intermittently during the trip, requires extra packaging to prevent breakage.

These are all problems Fraser doesn’t have to worry about with Railex, which has made the five-day trek once a week since its first train left Wallula in fall 2006. During some heavy harvest periods, the company has amped up to two trains per week.

And since the railcars stay linked together during the entire trip, no extra packaging is needed. The company can ship the wine in the same packaging it uses on semi-trucks. 

Less packaging saves the company money and means less waste and a smaller carbon footprint, something that’s very important to the company, Fraser said. 

About a million cases of Ste. Michelle wines will be loaded onto Railex trains this year, he said.

And, although it still takes a lot of fuel to get the wine to its destination, fewer trucks are on the road.