BY MARK B. SOLOMON, EXECUTIVE EDITOR–NEWS
RAIL/INTERMODAL
LAST YEAR PROVED THAT INTERMODAL SHIPPERS COULD BE A TOLERANT BUNCH.
Despite a fiasco-filled 2014 on the nation’s rail network, noncaptive intermodal users, instead of
taking their freight elsewhere, threw more business at the railroads than ever before.
This year will be a test of the railroads’ resilience and whether they can vindicate shippers’
faith in them. It will also be a test of shippers’ fortitude, especially if bad winter weather puts
rail service behind the curve again.
Intermodal traffic stood to increase in 2014 by 3 to 5 percent over 2013 levels, according to
Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) data in mid-December, when this story was
written. Through the end of November, 14. 9 million trailers and containers moved in domestic
and international service, according to IANA. Barring a December collapse, 2014 volumes will
break the 2013 record of 15. 5 million units, said Joni Casey, IANA’s president and CEO. Through
mid-December, intermodal traffic grew at a pace expected to double that of 2014 U.S. gross
domestic product, according to Lee A. Clair, partner in the consultancy Zubrod/Clair & Co.
The increases, if they hold through 2014’s end, will have come amidst the most chaotic rail
operating environment in 10 years. Inclement weather that began in late 2013 intensified during
the first quarter, wreaking havoc across the country’s northern tier and at the industry’s main
interchange point in Chicago, where the network froze up as rail and road drayage operations
were paralyzed. Not surprisingly, rail velocity and dwell time metrics sagged terribly during the
quarter and didn’t begin recovering until the end of the year. Carriers were and still are unable
to say when complete “fluidity” would be restored to their networks.
Railroads were plagued by shortages of locomotives, crews, and infrastructure. Another
season of a bountiful harvest triggered continued surges in grain traffic. A sharp spike in such
nontraditional commodities as fracking sand and crude oil forced, notably, BNSF Railway—
whose network serves the shale oil fields of the Dakotas—to put energy shipments ahead of
other commodities and traffic, including intermodal.
Through the first week of December, BNSF’s 2014 intermodal volumes were flat year over
year, according to Clair. By contrast, Union Pacific Corp., BNSF’s rival whose system wasn’t
transportationreport
Intermodal traffic
grew in 2014 despite
a bad year on the rails.
Will 2015 bring more
of the same, or will
it bring an end to
shippers’ patience?
Spending in the storm
