Rail News

Transnet National Ports Authority is leading attempts to win road traffic back onto rail in South Africa, a shift it would stand to gain from the most.

Canadian Pacific Railway’s attempt to takeover Norfolk Southern Railway has already raised alarm with a group of Illinois lawmakers and prompted a pointed response from the Canadian railroad.

A proxy war has been all but declared, analysts say, after Canadian Pacific Railway announced Wednesday it had upped its hostile bid for Norfolk Southern Railway by some $3.4 billion.

Brazil rail operator MRS Logistica SA’s expects container volume to rise at least 10 percent year-over-year in 2016 after volume jumped 34 percent during the first 10 months of this year compared to the same period in 2014.

Deutsche Bahn is expected to unveil plans today to trim underperforming rail freight operations as part of a restructuring to restore profitability as it faces its first net loss in over a decade this year.

With expectations that Canadian Pacific Railway is about to launch a proxy fight for control of Norfolk Southern Railway, the Calgary-based railroad’s recent response to an NS white paper is the latest attempt to convince investors to give the deal yet another look at its pitch.

Shipment volumes in the U.S. were flat in November from the previous month, but shipper spending dropped, according to the Cass Freight Index.

Volumes of containerized cargo travelling between China and Europe by rail are growing as operators increase frequencies and state organizations along the route lend their weight to the development of new services.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Russia’s container transportation market is on the verge of consolidation. The country’s two largest, and ailing, container transport providers — container line and terminal operator Fesco and containerized rail provider Transcontainer — plan to merge.

Tuesday’s proposed merger of Canadian Pacific and Norfolk Southern railways raises the question of whether the Class I railroad industry will be swept up in the wave of consolidation hitting the third-party logistics, parcel, and perhaps, even, the container shipping industries.

The importance of the Trans-Siberian Railway, or Transsib, as a container route from Asia to Europe is steadily growing, despite the decline in volume this year, according to Oleg Belozerov, president of Russia’s railway monopoly, RZD.

With carload volumes on the decline, and intermodal service on the incline, the temptation to link the two, or to go further, and claim one has caused the other, arises. The two networks overlap significantly, but operate differently and have significant exclusivity as well.

TACOMA — On-dock rail is a requirement for West Coast ports, which ship about two-thirds of their containerized imports inland via intermodal, but the Port of Tacoma really sees efficient rail operations as a strategic advantage in its competition for market share with Canada and California ports.

Canadian Pacific Railway is reportedly gearing up to make a play for Norfolk Southern Railway in a new effort to consolidate the North American rail industry just 13 months after a similar bid for NS archrival, CSX Transportation, fell flat.

BNSF Railway's intermodal volume growth accelerated in the third quarter as the western railroad said strong service and normalizing trade patterns bumped up volume and in turn helped boost net income and revenue.

U.S. shippers and the surface transportation providers that serve them can be excused for feeling a bit jittery about the nation’s economic recovery. Nearly every day there’s a new data reading suggesting the U.S. economic rebound is slowing, as high inventories, weak exports, limping domestic factory output and global headwinds, exacerbated by a winded China, take a toll.

A 2 percent gain by the world's Top 50 largest transportation service providers in 2014 marked a turnaround after the group’s combined revenue slipped 0.1 percent in 2013.

After a slow year, the outlook for the North American intermodal industry is brightening as service improves, truck capacity tightens and international trade patterns return to normal, according to the Intermodal Association of North America.

UPS assumed the top spot on the JOC-SJ Consulting Group list of Top 50 Global Transportation Providers in terms of 2014 revenue, pushing Deutsche Post DHL to the No. 2 position. Of the Top 50, 13 companies are located in North America, 19 in Europe, 16 in the Asia-Pacific region, and one each in India and Australia.

For the first time in nearly a year, more U.S. shippers say they are shifting freight from truck to rail than the other way around on improved intermodal service, according to a survey of roughly 600 shippers.

U.S. shippers expect muted freight volume growth through the third quarter of 2016 as they continue to pull from existing stocks before placing new orders after inventories ballooned during the gridlock at West Coast ports.