Logistics Management

Earlier this week, Fort Worth, Texas-based Class I railroad BNSF Railway voiced its opposition to the proposed $85 billion Union Pacific (UP) merger with Norfolk Southern (NS), which was initially announced in July 2025. When the merger was first announced in July 2025, the rail carriers said it would create the nation’s first transcontinental railroad—connecting more than 50,000 route miles across 43 states, from the East Coast to the West Coast, and linking approximately 100 ports.

Prologis has acquired 69 acres in Minooka, Illinois, where it plans to build a 1 million-square-foot warehouse near one of the Chicago region’s main distribution corridors. The 1,002,000-square-foot facility, called Minooka Exchange, will be built near Interstate 80 in Chicago’s southwest suburbs. Prologis expects to break ground in the coming weeks, according to a company announcement published by REJournals.

United States rail carload and intermodal volumes, for the week ending September 5, saw annual gains. Rail carloads, at 234,397, posted an 8.9% annual gain, trailing the weeks ending August 29 and August 22, at 240,021, and 235,885, respectively. AAR reported that nine of the 10 carload commodity groups it tracks saw annual gains: metallic ores and metals, up 4,859 carloads, to 23,122; grain, up 4,373 carloads, to 22,509; and chemicals, up 3,848 carloads, to 33,653.

Preliminary August Class 8 truck net orders saw sequential declines and annual gains, according to recent data respectively issued by FTR and ACT Research. FTR reported that preliminary August Class 8 orders, at 18,200 units, were off 19% compared to August and up 42% annually, attributing the sequential decline to normal summer seasonality, the end of the 2026 order season, and the final stretch of the EPA NOX 2027 pre-buy—as opposed to weaker underlying demand.

Austin, Texas-based ShipStation, a provider of Web-based e-commerce shipping services, recently announced it has added less-than-truckload freight shipping to the same platform its customers use to manage parcel shipments. Customers can now compare real-time LTL rates, book freight, track shipments, and manage invoices without moving to a separate system. The service is rolling out to ShipStation merchants, the company announced Sept. 1.

As was widely expected, in the most recent example of a heightened cross-border trade war between the United States and Canada, earlier today Canada moved forward with retaliatory tariffs on United States imports into the country—in the form of 15%, 25%, and 50% on various products.

As reported by LM earlier this week, an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) was issued by United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), entitled “Heightened Import Disclosures for Supply Chain Visibility,” which is focused on improving visibility into the supply chain of goods into the U.S. CBP officials explained that this ANPRM would help to “more effectively detect, stop, and prevent illicit imports that evade U.S. customs and trade laws.” CBP said that this ANPRM stands in...

United States rail carload and intermodal volume, for the week ending August 29, saw annual gains, according to data issued this week by the Association of American Railroads (AAR). Rail carloads, at 240,021, posted a 2.2% annual gain, topping the week ending August 22, at 235,885, and the week ending August 15, at 233,261.

Thomasville, N.C.-based national less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL) provider operating metrics, for the month of August, today. ODFL reported that revenue per day was up 12.5% annually, due to an increase in LTL revenue per hundredweight, which was partially offset by a 0.9% decrease in LTL tons per day.

August brought another month of services economy growth, according to the new edition of the ISM Services PMI Report, which was released today by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). The August Services PMI reading, at 55.4 (a reading above 50 represents expansion and below 50 indicates contraction), increased 1.3% compared to July, growing, at a faster rate, for the 26th consecutive month, with the overall economy growing, at a faster rate, for the 75th consecutive month.