OAK BROOK, Ill. — Lessened demand, increased competition, and closed rail lanes caused a 9% decline in third quarter intermodal volume, officials of the Hub Group announced Wednesday. Intermodal revenue declined by 7% to $539 million at the intermodal, trucking, and third-party logistics company. “Intermodal has in fact lost some share, and it’s not just […]
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Intermodal net income was down 30% in the third quarter of 2019 for major intermodal, trucking, and logistics company Schneider National. The drop was due to reduced volumes and increased rail costs, officials say. Revenue was off by 2% and Schneider’s intermodal operating ratio increased to 89.9, up from 85.8 for […]
A Canadian National crude oil trainset passes through River Forest, Ill., on Union Pacific on Sunday, Oct. 27. CN and Canadian Pacific will see an upswing in crude oil traffic following a decision by the province of Alberta to lift quotas on oil production if the oil moves by rail. TRAINS: David Lassen EDMONTON, Alberta […]
Tank cars placarded for alcohol bring up the rear of a Canadian Pacific train passing the Elmwood Park, Ill., Metra station. While many flammable materials may be moved by tank car, liquefied natural gas is not currently among them; a Department of Transportation proposal would change that. The tank cars shown are not the type […]
LOWELL, Ark. — Although its overall intermodal freight volumes were flat in the third quarter, J. B. Hunt Transport Services seeks to move more highway freight to trains. And Hunt officials say they’re also making their peace with Precision Scheduled Railroading, based on comments in a Tuesday earnings call with investors. Quarterly intermodal revenue was […]
Starting in October 2019, Classic Trains editors will celebrate the heritage, history, and lore of famed (and infamous) railroads. We start this series with the beloved Boston & Maine. Please enjoy a collection of images located in the David P. Morgan Library archives at Kalmbach Media that include B&M’s iconic locomotives and scarce builder’s photos. […]
A Canadian National train with Illinois Central-painted locomotives departs Chicago’s Markham Yard in 2017. TEH-17089-16 Jacob Metzger Q: When I was in the second grade, we took a field trip to what was then the largest freight yard in the country. That was over 50 years ago, when I lived in a Chicago suburb. I […]
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration today issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Federal-State Partnership for State of Good Repair Program. The funding opportunity includes $396 million in grant funding. “This $396 million in federal funding will provide a tremendous boost to private, state and local investments to improve […]
BURLINGTON, Vt. — A common theme woven through several presentations at a regional rail shippers’ conference this week involved a key question: Are railroads still relevant? The world increasingly expects transportation that’s fast, reliable, and easy. Railroads are slow, unreliable, and complicated. As a result, they’ve lost market share to trucks and often aren’t even […]
BURLINGTON, Vt. — Precision Scheduled Railroading favors stockholders over shippers, has not improved service, and could ultimately lead to some form of re-regulation of the railroad industry, a Penn State University logistics professor contends. “As an outsider, I’ve been looking at PSR and trying to figure out what it is, what it does, and what […]
A CSX Transportation intermodal train hits the diamond at Blue Island, Ill., on Sept. 16, 2019. CSX, BNSF, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific face a series of lawsuits from shippers over fuel surcharges the railroads instituted beginning in 2003. TRAINS: David Lassen Shippers across the country filed suit against the four largest U.S. railroads on […]
WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board on Tuesday issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would amend the Board’s railroad performance data reporting rules. Specifically, the Board proposes to include chemical and plastics traffic as a distinct reporting category to the Class I railroads’ weekly reporting of the “cars-held” metric, which tracks the average number […]
