Surface

BNSF Railway is flirting with the idea of a potential CSX Transportation or Norfolk Southern Railway acquisition as Canadian Pacific aims to acquire the latter railroad, potentially setting off a wave of consolidation in the Class I industry.

The electronic logging mandate that takes effect in late 2017 will have a big impact on shippers, as well as carriers and drivers, especially when coupled with the driver coercion rule. Supply chains will have to adjust as technology brings both transparency and "rigidity" to driver hours.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association will sue the Department of Transportation in a bid to block a rule requiring truck drivers to use electronic logging devices, the association's executive vice president said today.

U.S. lawmakers Thursday voted to overhaul the nation’s main freight rail regulator and give the Surface Transportation Board stronger investigative powers and streamline complaint review processes.

The American Trucking Associations welcomed a mandate requiring 3 million truck drivers to use electronic logs by 2017, hailing the safety benefits of the technology. Other trucking groups may not be so happy.

U.S. truck drivers using paper logs to record their work hours must switch to electronic logging by 2017 under a new regulation, a step that means big changes for drivers, carriers and shippers.

U.S. lawmakers are expected to pass an overhaul of the Surface Transportation Board, giving the nation’s main freight rail regulator more teeth to crackdown on service issues and boost competition in the industry.

Norfolk Southern Railway’s second rejection of a takeover bid from Canadian Pacific has ignited talk of a potential hostile takeover — something the Class I railroad industry has never seen and is unlikely to occur, according to an intermodal analyst.

At least two Class I railroads are cracking down on how long shippers can keep their containers and trailers at intermodal terminals via shorter free-time windows — and one of the railways has hiked storage fees — in an effort to improve network velocity.

Apparel wholesaler S&S Activewear is the latest company to set up distribution operations in the Kansas City area, expanding its overnight delivery footprint in the Central U.S.

U.S. trucking companies added 2,300 workers in November, after watching payroll drop from an eight-year high in September and October. The uptick may indicate stronger holiday freight demand, but trucking's hiring rate has slowed since 2014.

Norfolk Southern Railway has rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from Canadian Pacific Railway after the NS board said the $28 billion takeover bid undervalued the company’s stock and the potential regulatory hurdles would threaten business operations.

Transporation holding company Arcbest, the parent of ABF Freight, expanded its asset-light business by adding truckload broker Bear Transportation to fast-growing ABF Logistics.

From a near-meltdown at U.S. West Coast ports to a wave of mergers and acquisitions, with hints of more in the container line industry, 2015 has been full of plenty of surprises.

Class 8 truck orders fell to their lowest level in at least three years, the latest sign of how motor carriers are pulling back on adding capacity as freight demand slows.

Freight brokers are in a unique position to take advantage of the weak economy, BB&T Capital Markets says.

New intermodal terminals in Australia reflect the more holistic approach toward port capacity and productivity that some observers say will be needed as volumes grow and mega-ships discharge larger and larger loads of cargo.

The value of goods shipped between Mexico and the U.S. continues to climb, while the goods value in U.S.-Canada trade is dropping. Lower fuel prices and the strong U.S. dollar are partly to blame, as well as the surge in Mexican manufacturing aimed at the U.S.

Old Dominion Freight Line barreled past signs warning U.S. shipping was slowing in the first two months of the fourth quarter, handling more shipments and higher freight tonnage.

The surge in acquisitions keeps building, as truckload carrier Transport America, acquired last year by TransForce, buys logistics company Optimal Freight.

Freight transportation is a hot target market for companies that want to emulate the success of Uber, kayak.com and Airbnb. A truck is not a taxi, however, and the "shared economy" in the freight world will likely look different than it does in other markets.

The worst reading from the Institute for Supply Management’s Purchasing Managers Index in three years signals a slowdown in freight for less-than-truckload carriers to haul.

Russia and China plan to spend $3 billion to build two rail corridors aimed at encouraging the movement of containerized freight from the northeastern provinces of China to Russia’s Far-East ports.

Werner Enterprises, the fifth-largest truckload carrier in the U.S., is raising solo driver pay by an average of $5,000 annually, the latest sign of how motor carriers are forking out more to keep and attract drivers ahead of serious demographic headwinds.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released on Friday the final version of its coercion rule, the first in a number of regulations that could impact U.S. truck capacity moving forward.

A decision on whether BNSF Railway will be allowed to build an intermodal container transfer facility considered crucial to growth at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach could be made next spring.

For-hire truck tonnage reversed two months of decline in October even as inventories remain a drag on truck freight volume, according to the latest figures from the American Trucking Associations.

U.S. domestic intermodal spot rates have been falling thanks in large part to loose capacity on major lanes, according to third-party logistics provider IDS. The Indianapolis-based 3PL, though, is warning that trend could easily reverse course if the industry is rocked by another winter as it has been in years past.

The government of Italy has unveiled plans to partially privatize the state rail operator, Ferrovie dello Stato, in 2016.

A new dry port with a capacity of 900,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units will be built in the territory of the Nadezhdinskaya special economic zone in Russia’s Far East Primorye Territory to cope with growing volume.

Transportation stakeholders received something to celebrate this year as 44 percent of the new $500 million round of the Department of Transportation’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program went to projects dedicated to moving freight.

The National Automobile Dealers Association raised its forecast for 2016 U.S. car and light truck sales to 17.7 million units, a record high that will drive automotive freight and logistics demand.

The Port of Mobile is expanding terminal capacity and building an adjacent $36 million intermodal container transfer facility. The projects, set for completion in 2016, will increase its terminal’s 350,000-TEU capacity to 475,000 TEUs.

Less-than-truckload shipments increased marginally in the first nine months of 2015, as freight revenue plummeted, thanks largely to the drop in fuel surcharges, SJ Consulting Group says.

The Cass Truckload Linehaul Rate Index and Intermodal Pricing Index show the year-over-year growth in truckload pricing slowing to a crawl, while intermodal pricing falls lower.

It may come as no surprise that an Atlanta highway interchange known as “Spaghetti Junction,” topped the list of the worst truck bottlenecks in the U.S. this year.

Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL Group, the world’s largest leading logistics and mail communications company since 2008, will share his views on the current and future state of global supply chains on Feb. 28, 2016, at the 16th Annual TPM Conference in Long Beach, California.

Tis the season for cargo theft — and transportation companies and shippers are advised to be on guard this Thanksgiving weekend.

Canadian Pacific Railway CEO Hunter Harrison said he’s willing to reevaluate and raise his company’s $28 billion takeover bid for Norfolk Southern Railway — if only executives at the Virginia-based railroad would open a line of communication.

Shippers are cheering emergency legislation that ended nationwide blockades by Brazilian independent truckers.