CSX expects a year of growth after fourth-quarter profits improve

Train crossing truss bridge

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – CSX Transportation expects intermodal and merchandise volume to grow faster than the economy this year as the railroad continues to win share from the highway. “We expect to return to growth in 2021,” CEO Jim Foote told investors and analysts on the railroad’s quarterly earnings call Thursday. Merchandise traffic growth should outpace […]

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Union Pacific expects volume growth in 2021

Freight train on curve

OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific expects volume to increase by 4% to 6% this year as vaccines are rolled out, the economy recovers, and trucking capacity remains tight. Railroad executives gave their cautiously optimistic outlook Thursday morning during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. Other than energy-related traffic segments, UP has a positive view on volume. […]

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Digest: KCS to develop logistics park in Dallas suburb

Rendering of planned industrial development

Thursday midday rail news: KCS, development firm to develop Wylie, Texas, logistics park Kansas City Southern and NorthPoint Development have announced plans to develop a 220-acre logistics park in Wylie, Texas, adjacent to the railroads’ David L. Starling Wylie Intermodal Terminal. The Wylie Logistics Park, in a northeastern suburb of Dallas, will have the potential […]

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Short Line Railroads

Train coming out of a tunnel

    You got it. Railroads covered most of the country with branches, and sidings and house tracks, where one and two car loads of freight could be loaded or unloaded. The local brought coal for the school boilers, fuel for the local distributor, and carried away raw materials that fed industry, and hauled off […]

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Short Line Railroads

Train coming out of a tunnel

    You got it. Railroads covered most of the country with branches, and sidings and house tracks, where one and two car loads of freight could be loaded or unloaded. The local brought coal for the school boilers, fuel for the local distributor, and carried away raw materials that fed industry, and hauled off […]

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Intermodal and the Long-Haul Market

Intermodal car containers

    Yes it is, Brian. In fact, intermodal passed coal in 2013 as railroads’ biggest revenue source. In 2014, U.S. railroads tacked more than a half million intermodal loads onto their 2013 totals, notching a record 13.5 million shipments. Intermodal is likely to become even more significant in coming years as the industry spends […]

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Intermodal and the Long-Haul Market

Intermodal car containers

    Yes it is, Brian. In fact, intermodal passed coal in 2013 as railroads’ biggest revenue source. In 2014, U.S. railroads tacked more than a half million intermodal loads onto their 2013 totals, notching a record 13.5 million shipments. Intermodal is likely to become even more significant in coming years as the industry spends […]

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Burlington Northern and the Grain Industry

A train going past a grain site

    Sure thing, Angela. Since the Baltimore & Ohio began hauling flour from Ellicott’s Mills to Baltimore in 1830 — grain, flour, and seeds have been an important part of railroading. Grain moved in boxcars for decades, but in the early 1960s, Southern Railway’s new, 100-ton — Big John — covered hopper revolutionized grain […]

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Burlington Northern and the Grain Industry

A train going past a grain site

    Sure thing, Angela. Since the Baltimore & Ohio began hauling flour from Ellicott’s Mills to Baltimore in 1830 — grain, flour, and seeds have been an important part of railroading. Grain moved in boxcars for decades, but in the early 1960s, Southern Railway’s new, 100-ton — Big John — covered hopper revolutionized grain […]

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Steel: a Critical Building Block

Modern steel mill

    For an industry which hauls the heaviest, densest loads overland, no other material has proven itself more useful to railroads than that combination of iron, carbon, and trace minerals.  For more than 150 years, U.S. steelmakers have needed railroads to efficiently haul their heavy iron ore, taconite pellets, and coal, and also to transport […]

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Steel: a Critical Building Block

Modern steel mill

    For an industry which hauls the heaviest, densest loads overland, no other material has proven itself more useful to railroads than that combination of iron, carbon, and trace minerals.  For more than 150 years, U.S. steelmakers have needed railroads to efficiently haul their heavy iron ore, taconite pellets, and coal, and also to transport […]

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