FreightWaves SONAR: Will Ocean Carriers Scale Back Sailing Cancellations?
Container-liner schedules are about to provide a telling clue on U.S. cargo demand.
Freightwaves
FreightWaves SONAR: Soft Truck Volume and Pricing Data Highlight an Intermodal Challenge
Throughout last year and year-to-date, the Class I railroads and the truckload-based intermodal companies have highlighted the soft truckload market as one of the major reasons for a lack of intermodal volume growth. The depth of the truckload weakness and how it may be changing can be illustrated from data provided by the FreightWaves SONAR software platform.
FreightWaves SONAR: Class I/Truckload-Based Intermodal Partner Fortunes Diverge
The Class I railroads and the truckload-based domestic intermodal marketing companies have all finished reporting their first-quarter 2020 earnings. For the Class I railroads, the theme of their earnings reports was that operational and cost efficiency improvements are continuing, even as steep volume contraction has stopped any thought of revenue growth for the time being.
FreightWaves SONAR: Container Import Weakness Could Peak in 2Q2020
U.S. ports should see sharply lower container imports in the second quarter, but throughput could pick up in the second half—assuming there is not a major resurgence of coronavirus cases.
Railway Age, FreightWaves Partner on New Freight Forecasting Channel
Railway Age has partnered with freight transportation intelligence provider FreightWaves to expand its coverage of logistics and near-time analytics. FreightWaves is sponsoring a new channel, “Freight Forecasting,” on www.railwayage.com.
FreightWaves SONAR: Repurposing Tank Cars For Crude Oil Storage Not Promising
With fears that the world is so overflowing with crude oil that markets will literally run out of places to put it, attention has turned to another option to hold it: railcars. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, so those who need to be sure those railcars are available for other uses can breathe a sigh of relief.
FreightWaves SONAR: Q&A: Transport Economist on Pandemic Pain, Lasting Fallout
The coronavirus is severely disrupting container shipping and global supply chains in 2020, but that’s just the beginning. The pandemic is laying the foundation for permanent changes to the business of international trade.
FreightWaves SONAR: Heartland Shippers Feel 20-Foot-Box Squeeze
The smallest of the standardized ocean containers in the global fleet remains ideal for dense, heavy agricultural goods, forest products and machinery shipments.
Commentary
Managing Costs During A Pandemic
North American rail managers are good at managing costs, but 2020 might be their ultimate challenge. Let’s say you are in charge at a freight railroad. What do you do in such hard times with so many fixed costs? You can ratchet down variable costs. That’s easy. The tougher part is twisting a large part of those fixed costs into segments of variable costs. How do you do that? Let’s start by defining what these railroad costs are.
Commentary
Fewer Freight Cars on the Horizon?
True or false: Freight rail growth might require fewer cars in the future. As Class I railroads reported their 1Q2020 and full-year 2019 quarterly financial results, the expectation set by the individual railroads was that returning customers will help spur volume growth. Though 2020 is starting out slowly, most senior railroad executives and shipper logistics managers are talking about a possible recovery in the second half of the year. However, there is little statistical economic data published yet to support that optimistic outlook.