Shift from road to rail

摘要

Intermodal container and trailer traffic carried on North America's rail system has been severely impacted by the recession, with volumes well down in 2009. However, strong pricing power has enabled railroads to weather the storm rather better than their ocean liner peers. Hence, railroads have continued with their investment programmes to remove bottlenecks and improve transit times in a bid to better compete with trucking services. Meanwhile, the industry received a mammoth confidence boost when Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway investment group acquired the largest intermodal railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) earlier this year.