Rail News

Truckers continue to battle turns of more than an hour at times in BNSF’s Lot 16 outside Chicago, where the railroad has instructed all empty containers to be returned. This means drivers complete fewer jobs per day and shippers have to wait longer for service.

All rail traffic along a busy route connecting the French city of Lyon and Turin in Italy has been suspended, forcing rail operators to re-route.

Union Pacific Railroad will begin charging truckers and logistics providers for missed appointments for intermodal terminals and tighten free storage time for demurrage to 24 hours in all terminals beginning this autumn.

The intermodal peak season is expected to be a manageable one with domestic volumes continuing to be weak and abundant container capacity, while international loads will increase at a slower pace than a year ago. Industry stakeholders believe intermodal service will be good in the peak season.

Despite huge growth in container volume transported by rail between China and Europe, the journey time is decreasing as services become more efficient.

The eighth-largest US trucking operator adds an intermodal option in Indianapolis, making service between the US Midwest and Northeast more competitive with trucks.

CMA CGM’s latest rail investment in India continues to tap into the country’s emerging inland market.

With the final piece of a $1 billion plan to create rail terminals on the five largest terminals in the Port of New York and New Jersey recently completed, the port is now focusing on how to improve fluidity once the trains leave the terminal.

The alliance between India’s containerized rail leader and digital startup could signal the future of supply chain logistics in the country.

Despite a downturn in volume, freight shippers say intermodal remains a critical component of their supply chains even as technology is poised to lower truck costs.

Concor looks to potentially expand its short-sea network, even beyond India. It has its eyes on the Bangladesh transshipment market.

The Illinois Trucking Association has begun to track truck turn times in Chicago rail yards to provide shippers a better understanding of how congestion disrupts the supply chain.

There is consensus building in the intermodal industry that each port or rail hub should develop a regional pool of grey chassis managed by a single entity responsible for ensuring chassis quality and availability.

If the UK leaves the European Union without a deal, industry fears massive delays at ferry ports of Dover in the UK and Calais in France.

Chasing volume at the expense of profitability is a “problematic recipe,” according to the author, pointing to ocean container carriers as an example.

The new expanded intermodal rail yard has reopened at the Port of Virginia, doubling capacity for CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern. The port says this means quicker transfers from ships to trains.

Union Pacific Railroad and Norfolk Southern Railway announced a series of changes to cross-country service, which will require a crosstown drayage in Chicago for a number of international loads heading to and from ports.

Beer company MillerCoors alleges Norfolk Southern threatened to raise rates on captive lanes if the railroad lost business to CSX.

Although last week’s Surface Transportation Board hearing didn’t include intermodal, shippers complain about penalties assessed when their cargo arrives on a Friday night and their warehouses are closed until Monday.

The terminal operator’s acquisition of a majority stake in three large inland logistics centers in North India builds on services offered via Indian intermodal subsidiary Container Rail Road Services (CRRS).

Panel says shippers need to be proactive in negotiating different terms into their contracts to protect themselves when no chassis are available for final delivery.

The Federal Maritime Commission briefed the STB this week about the efforts of Memphis shippers and truckers to establish a chassis pool to eliminate a common cause of rail demurrage penalties.

The Surface Transportation Board put Class I railroads on the hot seat about demurrage and accessorial policies that rail shippers have described as unreasonable and revenue generators.

Group Mexico’s purchase of Florida East Coast Railway has opened up new opportunities for Florida ports to court all-water service from Mexico to bypass the congestion of Texas border crossings.

The massive expansion of Mexico’s second largest port will include a second rail line that will allow direct access for Kansas City Southern of Mexico in addition to Ferrosur at present.

Retail giants Walmart and Amazon have entered into conversations directly with Class I railroads to enter in service agreements, bucking the historical structure in which shippers are required to use intermediaries to procure space.

BNSF Railway, Norfolk Southern, and CSX say domestic intermodal contract rates have risen by upper single-digit percentages in the first quarter, but some non-asset intermodal marketing companies tell quite a different story.

The costs of climate change and impacts to business are typically discussed as abstract and distant, but a review of recent history shows those costs are already here, and climbing.

Coastal transshipment at Indian ports has grown considerably since the relaxation of cabotage rules, but detractors argue that privately operated minor ports have reaped more of the benefits than their publicly run counterparts.

Historically, intermodal rail has offered a slower, lower-cost option for shippers, but with truckload prices falling, intermodal rail is now more expensive than trucking in some secondary markets.

Union Pacific Railroad will be closing the Global III terminal northwest of Chicago as part of its precision scheduled railroading operations in a shakeup that will send domestic intermodal volumes to Global II and international traffic to Global IV.

Canadian National is the latest Class I railroad to launch a mobile application for truck drivers to move more quickly through intermodal terminals by submitting documents ahead of time.

Two inland ports tied to the Port of New York and New Jersey by rail could help get trucks off the road but, if completed, they won’t alleviate storage pressure expected to rise as the port grows its discretionary rail volume to the Midwest.

Norfolk Southern saw big gains in international containers in the first quarter, but the railroad rejects the idea of domestic intermodal weakness in 2019 and is confident that rail pricing won’t be challenged by a much looser truck market.

India’s largest freight rail operator will maintain its current pricing through March 31, 2020, as part of a greater effort to encourage containerized rail movements throughout the country.

Applications are now being accepted for $900 million in USDOT BUILD grants for the upcoming fiscal year, a 40 percent reduction from the $1.5 billion made available last year for port, road, and rail projects.

Kansas City Southern referred to congestion in Houston as a smaller version of Chicago gridlock, while acknowledging coordination with Union Pacific Railroad needs to be better and precision scheduled railroading could help.

Slowing international growth and declining domestic volume in the first quarter point to the worst performance in intermodal since the freight recession ended in late 2016.

Kansas City Southern (KCS) reported a decline in first-quarter intermodal volumes due to the teacher blockade that stopped cargo going in and out of the port of Lazaro Cardenas by rail.

Intermodal volume will be down for many of the Class I railroads and trucking companies providing intermodal service, and although weather is an excuse, larger questions remain about the sector in the short and long term.