North-American rail

North American Class I railroads understand why shippers and logistics providers are skeptical about intermodal service, but they believe disruptions experienced in recent years will not happen again.

CPKC and CSX hope the new joint service will boost volumes along the route, which is not a popular one for intermodal business.

 The Class I railroad said it and Florida East Coast Railway are looking to take more trucks off the road with the additional intermodal service offering.

Halifax and Saint John are expanding their container terminals as Class I railroads see an opportunity to serve major inland destinations from the Eastern Canadian ports.

A muted peak and post-peak season for imports and intermodal activity has shippers and service providers eyeing a freight rebound no earlier than late 2024.

The US Transport Department will back improvements along tracks that span the ports of Mobile and New Orleans to allow freight and passenger service to coexist.

The Class I railroad and DrayNow will launch an app in 2024 designed to digitize, organize and streamline processes that have previously been performed via email or over the phone.

Railroads told the IANA conference they have made important operational changes that will translate into reliable service when demand picks up, but some logistics companies are not convinced.

Railroads told the Intermodal Association of North America conference they must concentrate on providing more reliable, consistent service at a competitive rate over the long term to reverse the recent market share loss to long-haul trucking.

The intermodal provider’s CEO believes there will be a small peak season between now and early November despite data from the US Surface Transportation Board showing volumes are down compared with last year.

The Intermodal Association of North America is building a geofence library for rail and marine terminals, which could provide better tracking of when containers enter and exit the terminals.

BNSF is testing the use of cameras on yard hostlers, poles and drones which can read and log the location of containers in the hopes of increasing fluidity through rail terminals.

Since new services from CPKC and CN were launched in May, intermodal volume out of Mexico has surged more than 30% year over year through the end of July.

Schneider believes once demand picks up for rail transportation, the intermodal industry can return to pre-pandemic levels of productivity for containers.

Norfolk Southern’s launch of an appointment system for import boxes in Memphis has not been smooth, but the railroad hopes to learn from the problems to make the October rollout in Atlanta better.

Truckload spot rates have risen slightly off the lows seen so far this year, although some trucking analysts do not expect a significant rebound in rates until early 2024.

While shippers using J. B. Hunt give conflicting answers on what the rest of this year will look like, the intermodal provider is strengthening its relationship with BNSF to prepare for the next upswing in demand.

Regardless of where demand for intermodal and truckload freight transport moves over the coming months, the industry holds the key to its destiny in its own hands, writes analyst Larry Gross. 

Familiar reminders of the disruptions to supply chains caused by climate change, such as low water levels on the Rhine River and in the Panama Canal and wildfires in North America, are becoming more frequent and intense.

After UP’s 2022 performance failed to meet the expectations of shareholders, an activist investor called for current CEO Lance Fritz to be replaced by Vena, who had previously served as the railroad’s chief operating officer.

CN said it will take up to eight weeks to clear the cargo backlog at the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert as the industry waits to see if ILWU Canada’s rank and file will accept terms of the tentative deal reached last week.

The desire to improve rail and intermodal visibility for bulk and breakbulk customers has led transportation management software provider IntelliTrans to partner with hardware vendor Nexxiot.

That mismatch between container supply and demand has forced intermodal providers to stack boxes, with J.B. Hunt saying it parked about 18% of its container fleet in the first half of the year.

The railroad said the partnership with the ocean carrier is designed to attract cargo owners who may want to avoid Southern California or are looking for a shorter transit for freight destined for the US Gulf Coast.

The link would offer an alternative to the Meridian Speedway that pre-merger Kansas City Southern and Norfolk Southern Railway have partnered on since 2006.

Union Pacific and BNSF partner COFC Logistics are cutting contractual rates on low-volume shippers through the end of the year in a bid to spur demand in a weakened domestic intermodal market.

Canadian Pacific Kansas City is continuing to invest in temperature-controlled intermodal as part of its Mexico-to-US offerings via a new partnership with warehouse provider Americold Logistics.

Norfolk Southern is a step closer to consolidating its Michigan intermodal business at one site after receiving a grant from the state for improvements at the Livernois yard.

While the FMC has jurisdiction over ocean carriers, it cannot regulate railroads simply because of their association with container lines, CSX said in a motion to disentangle itself from a demurrage complaint.

ILWU Canada rank-and-file will vote later this week on whether to issue a 72-hour strike notice, raising the unprecedented prospect of disruption on Canada’s West Coast amid job actions by labor along the US West Coast.

The railroad is reducing demurrage fees and restoring additional free time that was eliminated in the past two years as international intermodal volumes have fallen sharply from East Coast ports.

Union Pacific’s launch of direct intermodal service from Houston comes two weeks after competitor BNSF announced it would begin a new service from the port’s Barbours Cut marine terminal.

Weeks after starting a new daily train between central Mexico and Chicago, CPKC is introducing 1,000 temperature-controlled containers to the service in a bid to court freight from reefer shippers.

As shippers scramble to shed unwanted inventory, more than 80% responding to a Journal of Commerce survey reported that they’ve kept 53-foot domestic containers for too long, incurring detention fees.

Customers were largely satisfied with intermodal service in early 2023, citing CSX and J. B. Hunt as the top overall providers in North America, according to a Journal of Commerce biannual survey.

Rail storage has been at the forefront of recent regulatory discussion as the FMC solidifies its final rulemaking on detention and demurrage, with shippers wanting ocean carriers to be the billing party for such charges.

The railroad will start a twice-weekly service to Dallas and once-weekly service to Denver, but no ocean carrier as yet is offering inland moves from Houston.

Rail storage fees continue to be a point of contention for shippers and the National Shipping Advisory Committee wants the FMC to step up and take ownership.

Activity at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has a direct impact on the domestic intermodal market, large intermodal providers say, which is why rail volumes were so poor in the first quarter.

Currently, there is no US regulatory agency with direct authority to oversee application of rail storage fees under ocean carriers’ through bills of lading and to determine whether those charges are assessed properly.