North-American rail

A recent resurgence in international intermodal volumes is causing BNSF Railway to struggle to provide consistent service, disrupting the flow of containers between Los Angeles and Chicago.

Union Pacific Railroad is reducing its surcharge on certain loads in 53-foot containers out of Oakland and Seattle because more boxes are available for shippers.

A major disruption in Kansas City Southern’s terminal near Dallas is causing some shippers to wait more than a month to get their containers, and there is no timeline on when KCS will return to normal operations.

West Coast ports and terminal operators say rail container dwell times have exploded of late, bringing back memories of last summer’s rail meltdown that led to congestion problems and equipment shortages throughout the inland supply chain.

Marine chassis pools are getting tighter after a jump in international intermodal volume from West Coast ports in February, but stakeholders are hopeful of avoiding a repeat of 2021 when BNSF and Union Pacific terminals were overwhelmed with cargo.

Norfolk Southern Railway is again restricting container traffic at its Jacksonville terminal, this time after a crane fire earlier this week.

Norfolk Southern Railway has struggled to maintain fluid operations in Jacksonville for more than a year, with the latest disruption involving chassis shortages, late-arriving trains, and overhead cranes breaking down.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services will grow its box fleet by 40 percent to 150,000 containers within three to five years as it seeks to win market share from Union Pacific Railroad and its intermodal partners.

Shippers are frontloading cargo on Canadian Pacific Railway ahead of a potential Teamsters strike on March 16, causing a surge in volume and delays getting containers onto trains.

Canadian Pacific Railway and Kansas City Southern have run their first-ever Mexico to US Midwest international intermodal train together as the US Surface Transportation Board reviews the merger of the two railroads.

For the second consecutive year, Union Pacific Railroad is putting surcharges on excess cargo and spot volume out of California and Washington to control the supply of domestic 53-foot containers and chassis.

Schneider wants intermodal customers to know that service will remain strong on BNSF Railway this year ahead of its transition to rival Union Pacific Railroad in 2023.

The Alabama Port Authority is looking to add an inland rail terminal with the purchase of land near the state capitol of Montgomery.

Tracy Robinson will become the first female CEO of Canadian National Railway when the former Canadian Pacific executive takes over for J.J. Ruest at the end of February.

CSX Transportation CEO James Foote told federal regulators he will look to increase headcount at the Class I railroad as it seeks to take more business from trucking

Schneider National will leave BNSF Railway in 2023 to partner with Union Pacific Railroad, the third major container-owning intermodal provider to leave BNSF since mid-2021.

CSX laid out its case to federal regulators that it should be allowed to acquire New England’s Pan Am Railways in order to give shippers better intermodal service into Northeast ports.

Norfolk Southern Railway will reduce international intermodal service out of Cincinnati to the West Coast, calling the routes “low volume,” but exporters may end up paying more for the changes.

Union Pacific Railroad will rescind its peak season surcharges, a sign that domestic intermodal congestion in the western US has improved considerably in recent weeks

Ports and marine terminals say that more containers can be moved through on-dock rail now that service has improved, and rail car supply has eased.

Canadian Pacific has signed a multi-year agreement to continue to move goods for Canadian Tire, which will include the inland port the tire company purchased a stake in this August.

The Port of Long Beach’s project to move over one-third of its container volumes to rail received a boost from the US Department of Transportation through a $52 million grant.

Norfolk Southern CEO Jim Squires will retire in May, capping a 29-year stint at the US railroad and six years in the top job, which included a transition to precision scheduled railroading.

Construction has begun that would allow double-stack trains between Baltimore and Midwest cities such as Chicago, a major step in the Port of Baltimore’s effort to build its intermodal profile with shippers.

The backlog of ocean containers clogging intermodal hubs in the interior US has eased considerably in the past three months thanks to limitations placed on rail volumes flowing inland from major import gateways, but the ports themselves remain congested.

Norfolk Southern will cut the free time for importers to pick up ocean containers at more than two dozen smaller-market terminals, while also raising storage fees.

Union Pacific Railroad plans on running longer trains from Long Beach to Utah as the Port of Long Beach works with Utah Inland Port Authority to move more containers onto rail.

UP is grading domestic intermodal customers on dwelling of equipment, street turns of containers, and use of appointments using a four-tier monthly report card.

The western US railroads are offering refunds to customers who bring containers into their Los Angeles metro intermodal terminals on the weekends, a move to incentivize off-peak business.

Union Pacific Railroad says its decision to temporarily suspend westbound container flow at its near-dock ICTF yard in Los Angeles-Long Beach is needed to re-establish eastbound-westbound container balance at the facility.

International air freight and last-mile delivery saw the fastest revenue growth in the transportation sector last year, while industrial transportation suffered.

Union Pacific Railroad will test semi-automated cranes at its Global IV terminal in Chicago next year, hoping the new equipment will improve fluidity through there.

BNSF Railway said it has moved all ocean containers in Logistics Park Chicago to truck-accessible locations, but truck drivers say that has not solved all the problems they’ve been dealing with since the summer.

Norfolk Southern Railway is experimenting with less-than-carload service to take loads traditionally moved on LTL trucks on boxcars attached to intermodal trains, which has received praise from a top federal official.

Congestion in Vancouver has caused demand for Canadian Pacific’s 53-foot containers to skyrocket and the available supply to become extremely thin.

Norfolk Southern will reopen a closed intermodal terminal in Kentucky in order to handle high volumes of ocean containers coming into the Port of Virginia.

Union Pacific Railroad is limiting how many domestic containers it will take out of Chicago, Kansas City, and Memphis to the West Coast to address terminal congestion in its intermodal network.

Norfolk Southern Railway, which expects all chassis subject to a June safety recall to be repaired by next month, will buy more chassis in 2022 to address supply chain congestion.

Canadian National has bowed out of its pursuit of Kansas City Southern, two weeks after US regulators threw up a major roadblock to a proposed deal, clearing the way for Canadian Pacific to apply for regulatory approval for its deal with the US-Mexico railroad.

While container dwell may be up, intermodal volume on the UP network — domestic and international combined — is down 4.6 percent since July 1 from a year ago, according to the Association of American Railroads.