Rocky Peak Season Ahead For Intermodal Shippers

The upcoming summer-fall period is shaping up as the intermodal peak season of shipper discontent.

Cn

Six months after the most disruptive winter for North American supply chain interests in recent memory, the upcoming summer-fall period is shaping up as the intermodal peak season of shipper discontent, according to The Journal of Commerce

The makings are there for a perfect storm of rail delays in the summer-fall peak season, although analysts doubt shippers will see anything on the scale of the 2004 meltdown, when a surge in import volumes overran deployed capacity. Still, with ocean carrier slow-steaming, drayage truck shortages and potential labor actions, any intermodal delays will only increase the pressure on supply chains that already have little padding.

“What you have is a lack of surge capacity in the system and the railroads are running flat out,” said Larry Gross, a senior consultant at research firm FTR Associates. “If there is a backlog, you can’t run any harder than you are, and more volume just further chokes the system.”

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