FTR Transportation Intelligence has released the COVID-19 Rail Freight Recovery Index “to provide visibility on the state of the rail market as anticipation of an economic restart grows.” The Index currently shows that rail volumes in the intermodal and carload sectors “are likely near the bottom,” FTR says.
RAILWAY AGE, SEPTEMBER 2019 ISSUE – For rail customers, Precision Scheduled Railroading is a mixed blessing. At a North East Association of Rail Shippers (NEARS) conference earlier this year, PSR’s promises and perils took center stage.
Financial Edge, August 2017 Railway Age: Industry watchers spend a fair bit of time trying to take economic data and translate it into future carloads and railcar deliveries. Recent economic data continues to confound watchers who, several years into an economic downturn (railcar-wise), struggle to reconcile growth in the broad economy with the weakness in railcar and carload data.
Noted trucking industry veteran and freight economist Noel Perry appears to hold a positive near-to-intermediate term view of freight markets, projecting truckload capacity to exceed full utilization in 2018, according to Cowen and Company Managing Director and Railway Age Wall Street Contributing Editor Jason Seidl. However, he is pessimistic looking out to late 2018 and beyond, noting a probable recession.
