By Jim Blaze, Contributing Editor, Railway Age Magazine; January 2, 2020
Premise: The golden age of railroads taking trucks off of the highways might be over. Why? Because the low-hanging fruit may already have been harvested. Translation: Most rail intermodal traffic may be in fewer than two-dozen origin-destination lanes across the United States. That was the low-hanging fruit. Now, It’s mostly in growth hypostasis.
Reading the footnotes behind railroad market literature, “Intermodal does best in high-density traffic lanes over long distances.” Intermodal marketing, public relations and advertisements admit to this.