I’m sorry, but I think that this is a little too far removed from discussing trains to bring up here.
There’s a lot of major railroad shippers aka Mega Carriers that right now are getting hammered in this industry by 3 things. Over regulation high fuel prices and taxes and customers denying needed rate increases. Swift last quarter had an OR of 112 on their truckload side and 105 on their intermodal side. Schneider was at 102 truckload 101 intermodal even after seeing a 12% increase in revenue in intermodal shipments due to the CPKCS merger. Jb Hunt saw an 10 point jump in their OR to 99 overall. Heartland Express the #4 overall carrier was sitting at 106.
There’s a massive storm brewing in the OTR industry and the logistics industry overall things haven’t been this bad since the early 80s right after deregulation hit the industry. The next few months you might see several mega fleets fail along with multiple 200-500 truck fleets. Things are not looking good carriers are cutting off replacement of equipment and office staff. It’s not looking good.
Is there an EHH to implement PSR for trucking?
The two transportation industries - rail and trucking - are closely related.
That company cited a surge in lawsuits and the challenges of the “Great Freight Recession” as reasons for its financial difficulties. The “Great Freight Recession” sounds like it was not caused by regulatory changes. What gives?
That they are; this just feels a little too far removed from railroad talk to me.
I’m not going to flag this topic or anything, but I would not be surprised if it gets closed.
Some of the freight they hauled may end up on the rails,
The excess freight they hauled that doesn’t specifically move to rail may cause a supply/demand rate increase with other carriers, that in turn could push other freight onto the rails, that otherwise wouldn’t have moved
The two industries are very closely related, and what affects one, may affect the other, often in ways that at first glance aren’t obvious
Doug
That is true. Perhaps part of the problem for me is that there is no “what do you think the impact on the railroads will be?” message, just the article.
I suppose I should have stated the obvious. I falsely assumed, apparently, that an article discussing a crisis in trucking and failure of one trucking company would relate closely to the business prospects of the rail industry.
In case you hadn’t noticed, the owner of Firecrown is the owner of FreightWaves. But yes, discussion ought to center on the potential impact for rail, and at least two of the posts have done so so far.
A train and a truck are just two different tools that can be used to do the same job.
2 of the biggest issues in the OTR industry are emissions regulations and the costs of compliance there. 2nd is the ever increasing costs of insurance to even run a carrier.
I called my HS friend now COO of Quantix a 500 truck carrier headquartered in my area. We’ve been friends for decades especially since I spent 2 years in high-school clearing out tacklers for him to run away from in football plus helping him with classes.
Well I asked how well they’re doing if they didn’t have their warehouses and custom resin mixing business they woul have been bankrupt 6 months ago.
Their repair costs have jumped 40 percent this year alone. Their insurance costs spiked 30 percent over last year. These are costs that they have to cover within their revenue.
Let alone the cost of DEF whuch on it’s own has jumped 50 percent from last year. 80 percent of all their breakdowns are emission equipment related. Now for the ELD problem. In the last year of the Biden administration 25 different ELD devices were decertified for use by the FMCSA. Why instead of being satellite communication based they were cellular tower based. The Biden FMCSA rammed through a rule that only satellite based ELD devices were legal in the last few days of their administration. These devices on average cost 5 times as much as the others and 3 times as much for the subscriptions needed.
Except when it comes to getting to the final destination anymore. There’s very few warehouses and almost no grocery stores left with a railroad spur at their back door.
I know a dispatcher for CFI out of Joplin, MO. They got bought by Heartland Express. After over 30 years as a driver and dispatcher, he got laid off and today is his last day.
Shadow: Correction on ELD mandate.
The ELD ([Electronic Logging technology was mandated for truckers starting in December 2017. While the mandate was fully implemented by December 2019, the initial phase requiring carriers to use ELDs or AOBRDs ([Automatic Onboard Recording) began in December 2017. That was entirely in the Trump administration.
Cost Comparison
Satellite ELDs can range from several hundred to over a thousand dollars per device, while cellular ELDs may cost between $100 and $500.
Satellite ELD monthly fees can be $50 or more, while cellular ELD fees may range from $25 to $45 per month.
I did notice–I also thought that it was kind of interesting, for that matter.
I had expected that that was the purpose, but without the context it seemed sort of out of place here.
ELD-Implementation-Timeline.pdf https://share.google/m390DkuXQiCLsH9hM
Actually Charlie the mandate was under the Obama administration it became a requirement for operations in 2017. ELDs were made mandatory for continuing operations in February of 2016 with a transition period going into 2017 to allow all trucking companies to switch over to them. As even the Obama administration knew they’d destroy the economy if they put a drop dead date of comply or shutdown in 2016. Why there weren’t enough ELD devices in the nation to equip every truck in the nation.
What grocery store ever had a rail siding?
It doesn’t have to be all rail or all truck. Railroads are fantastically efficient for line haul. But for a lot of freight (most freight?) they are very inefficient for pick-up and delivery. Trucks do a great job with pick-up and delivery but aren’t as good as railroads for line haul.
So, mix the two transportation tools in an intermodal system while using both to their best advantage,
The unions could help with this by allowing one person crews on shorter intermodal trains serving smaller markets such as Clovis, NM, which is the location of the world’s largest cheese factory.
Clearly, you must not be very old.