Intermodal providers

While contract intermodal customers are realizing huge savings using rail this year, spot intermodal rates are not the bargain they were earlier in 2021.

Supply chain disruption is slowing economic growth, but “postponed” demand is expected to reemerge in 2022, keeping US freight capacity tight and transportation pricing high.

Tiger Cool Express is pursuing the purchase of a shuttered Union Pacific refrigerated warehouse to help develop a new cold chain intermodal hub in the Pacific Northwest.

Both of the primary ingredients to the traditional US intermodal peak season — a seasonal increase in demand and an increase in the number of TEU processed — are in question in 2021.

Trailers are just as important to over-the-road trucking as containers are to intermodal rail, and just as scarce.

A shortage of railcars and backlog of rail containers that first surfaced in Los Angeles-Long Beach this winter have migrated up the coast to Seattle, resulting in significant congestion at the Northwest Seaport Alliance’s largest container terminal.

An industry group is urging participants along the supply chain to quickly turn around equipment as the July 4th holiday will see severe tightness for containers and chassis.

Norfolk Southern Railway and Union Pacific Railroad are having trouble getting containers to shippers, in part because their supply of 53-foot chassis is very low.

BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad are looking for creative solutions to increase space to store containers in their Chicago terminals amid another spike in inland intermodal volume.

BNSF will adjust its free time calculations on June 7, tightening the window for shippers to pick up containers that are made available after 5:00 p.m., just two weeks after Norfolk Southern slashed its free time clock.

The JOC Intermodal Savings Index hit a new record in Q1, but rising spot intermodal rates and surcharges could reduce savings in Q2.

The South Carolina Ports Authority will expand Inland Port Greer, using a federal grant to add more space to the container yard, the chassis yard, and build new facilities for terminal operations.

Union Pacific Railroad will open a transload facility adjacent to a Chicago-area container terminal to meet rising demand for containerized agricultural exports amid ocean capacity challenges.

A group of Memphis shippers and truckers want the US Surface Transportation Board to instruct railroads to stop charging storage fees until a chassis shortage is resolved.

Intermodal service in Kansas City is a “complete mess,” according to three cargo owners, with an import surge causing chassis shortages and restrictions on what containers can be picked up or dropped off at rail terminals.

Shippers can save more money than ever before on intermodal, if they could find equipment and draymen to move their cargo to and from rail terminals amid scarce supply of both.

Container shippers using Norfolk Southern’s service for inland rail moves have been seeing major delays from US East Coast ports.

Union Pacific is co-developing the first intermodal terminal in Idaho which will connect the state’s ag shippers to the Pacific Northwest ports.

Texas is the epicenter of supply-chain damage caused by Winter Storm Uri, but the disruption is being felt nationwide. Mexican imports by truck may be delayed for days.

Shippers may see intermodal savings evaporate in the first quarter if rail contracts rise more than 10 percent and spot truck rates continue to cool off and pressure truck contracts.

Truckers are taking longer to get through terminals in Chicago because of the surge in cargo and changes in stacking containers with some railroads.

Intermodal executives want to address the chronic congestion issues in 2020 with railroads and BCOs, but universally accepted solutions are hard to come by.

Domestic intermodal volumes already elevated compared with a year ago and there are signs that international intermodal is on the upswing too.

When it comes to the Inland Point Intermodal market, it’s a 40-foot world; thus far in 2020, 40-foot containers comprise just over three out of every four IPI revenue moves.

Intermodal volume, rates, and savings have been on a rollercoaster this year, surging this summer to levels higher than a year ago after steep declines this spring during the height of the pandemic.

After wild swings in intermodal volume in the second quarter, CSX Transportation and Union Pacific Railroad are cautiously optimistic about peak season volumes, while realizing pandemic disruptions are lurking.

Intermodal shippers are increasingly putting pressure on 3PLs to waive container fees as a precondition for business amid the coronavirus-linked recession.

Intermodal is not seeing the same rebound in demand as trucking since the economic shutdown owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, and research firm FTR Associates does not believe containerized rail volume will fully recover to 2019 levels until sometime in 2021.

Domestic intermodal volume in April suffered its worst month in eight years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with intermodal marketing companies saying May might end as poorly, if not worse.

JOC’s Spot Intermodal Savings Index hit an 14-month low in a preliminary April reading, the first snapshot of how the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the math on how much money intermodal can save a shipper.

A new international distribution center in Houston blends US trucking and containerized imports as less-than-truckload carrier Averitt reaches deeper into US consumer markets.

North American intermodal volume may plunge as much as 25 percent in the second quarter, so railroads believe the right strategy is to focus on cost-cutting while providing reliable service.

Intermodal volume last week was the weakest in a nearly a decade as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has wreaked havoc on the railroads, which an industry analyst believes could cost Class I railroads $9 billion dollars.

Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority this year will feel the declining revenue effects of the economic recession projected to impact Los Angeles and Long Beach and all North American ports.

Domestic intermodal volumes rose in January year on year, but there is little else for intermodal marketing companies (IMCs) to feel good about right now.

Non-asset intermodal providers want railroads to be more lenient on container charges and late fees when bidding for shipper business in order to become more competitive with the likes of J.B. Hunt Transport Services.

There are no positives to be found in the Intermodal Association of North America’s latest market report, which shows year-over-year volume fell 7.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019 and 4.1 percent for the full year, with declines in all types of containers.

Amid weak intermodal volumes in 2019, the JOC Domestic Intermodal Savings Index shows spot and contract savings are lower than historical averages, although the year closed stronger for shipper savings on the spot market.

Railroads and intermodal providers say there will be more volume in 2020 than last year, although shipper demand will not fully recover until the second half of this year.

Despite stiff truck competition, East Coast ports have taken aggressive steps to capture more intermodal cargo and spend significant capital to build out rail infrastructure.