Rail News

A First Nation group has suspended its plan to stop Canadian National Railway from operating a line connecting the Port of Prince Rupert to the rest of the railroad’s network until Aug. 25.

Despite the loss of a refrigerated rail pioneer, other operators say they are still growing and that they’re better shielded from poor rail performance than Cold Train was.

WASHINGTON — Congressional pressure is mounting on BNSF Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway to get rid of a backlog of U.S. grain shipments before the harvest arrives this fall.

Many U.S. Midwest grain exporters have little reason to be optimistic that they’ll get their products to market on-time or for a price that will make shipping to Asia economically feasible.

Inland 40-foot container capacity was at a premium in the United States in the first half of 2014, although space is becoming more available as the second half advances.

Cold Train, a provider of refrigerated intermodal transport from Washington state throughout the rest of the country, has ended service, citing poor BNSF Railway performance.

Canadian National Railway services connecting the Port of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, to the rest of its network are running normally even though a First Nation group told the railroad to end operations by Aug. 4.

An announcement last week that a Chinese consortium would build a rail line connecting a planned port on Mexico’s Pacific Coast to a manufacturing hub along the U.S. border was heavy on fanfare but short on details.

North American intermodal volume growth this year appears to be on track to exceed the 4.6 percent gain seen in 2013 after traffic rocketed 8.2 percent year-over-year in the second quarter.

Declining operating standards across Europe’s rail network are threatening the future of intermodal transport, a leading combined transport company warned.

The first half of 2014 saw the start of several stories that JOC.com will most likely be covering for the next year and perhaps beyond.

Union Pacific management hopes that the company’s grab of rail business from its main competitor, BNSF, will translate into more long-term business for UP in the future.

Second-quarter volume increases have hampered Norfolk Southern’s ability to bring up train velocities after a cripplingly harsh winter.

Rail service continues to sputter, showing little improvement from levels seen during the depths of winter. Why?

Spurred by stronger industrial production, consumer spending and housing activity, truckload rates rose 5.2 percent on average in June from a year ago...

Despite solid revenue growth in the second quarter, Canadian National Railway says it’s facing a capacity problem, particularly at Canadian seaports, that’s forcing Canada’s largest railroad to temporarily turn away business.

Mexico’s manufacturing growth could push Kansas City Southern to new heights in the near future, according to analysts.

After seeing “substandard” intermodal rail service cut its container utilization in the second quarter, the Hub Group expects gradual service improvement from its main partners...

Canadian Pacific Railway said it will likely increase domestic intermodal volume on a double-digit basis over the next couple years after seeing 53-foot container volume rocket 18 percent year-over-year in the second quarter.

CSX Transportation said service, encompassing both intermodal and carload services, has normalized after a surge of freight but admitted it is working to restore service to a “level customers have come to expect” by adding locomotives and train crews and building track capacity.

Kansas City Southern Railway appears to be on track to grab business generated by BMW’s planned $1 billion plant in Mexico.

The pace of North American intermodal volume growth in the second quarter more than tripled from the prior quarter...

Six months after the most disruptive winter for North American supply chain interests in recent memory, the upcoming summer-fall period is shaping up as the intermodal peak season of shipper discontent.

Canadian National Railway will issue equipment allocations to ocean carrier customers shipping through Port Metro Vancouver and the Port of Prince Rupert as it struggles to cope with what it called an unexpected surge in U.S.-bound cargo linked to the July 1 expiration of the U.S. West Coast longshore contract.

Less than five miles from the U.S. Capitol, southwest Washington, D.C., residents are waging a fierce fight against CSX Transportation’s plans to rebuild and expand a tunnel to allow the double stacking of containers.

Rail is a long-distance transport alternative to road, ocean and air freight for temperature-controlled goods, according to the results of a two-year project that included a trial shipment from the Port of Antwerp to Kazakhstan.

U.S. surface transportation providers, ranging from railroads to trucking companies, are preparing for the approaching Hurricane Arthur.

The Volvo Group has reached a agreement with Scandinavian Logistics Partners AB to sell extra capacity in rail transport from Belgium to Sweden, effective July 1.

Kansas City Southern Railway’s new intermodal facility will allow the railroad to handle the growing conversion of truck loads to the rails in the Dallas region.

HP now stacks up to 50 containers on a block train that travels from Chongqing to the German city of Duisburg, on a route known as the New Silk Way that was developed by Kazakhstan Railways.

Union Pacific Railroad has added 11 intermodal train starts between Northern California and Portland, Oregon, and Chicago this year, potentially allowing the carrier to grab business from customers frustrated with BNSF’s ailing service.

Rail freight traffic is facing further disruption across France as a strike by rail workers extended to a ninth day, but an end to the stoppage is in sight amid waning support for the walkout.

The Port of New York and New Jersey's Port Newark Container Terminal is undergoing a major expansion that includes super-post-Panamax cranes, a jump in container lift capacity, double intermodal railyard capacity, and a 300-acre footprint.

Additional intermodal capacity that was added between the port of Rotterdam and Bavaria has been well received and is helping address a capacity shortage.

Rail freight traffic is being seriously disrupted across France and to and from the nation’s seaports as a strike by rail workers entered its sixth day with no sign of a settlement in sight.

U.S. intermodal service appears to have slipped again last week, suggesting that the major railroads’ rebound after a brutal winter wracked their networks and shippers’ supply chains will be one of fits and starts.

Cargo growth at a major intermodal complex outside of Chicago has triggered a fight between the developer and users of the inland port and a village fearful of accidents caused by the increased congestion.

Hub Group is adding equipment, technology and drayage drivers in an effort to improve intermodal fluidity.

Intermodal rail shippers could see an uptick in rates not just because truckload pricing will rise, but also because the U.S. and Canadian railroads want to throttle back volume growth to keep favorable margins, a noted rail analyst said.