Rail service better
North American rail service improved in the second quarter and year over year, according to Bear Stearns’s quarterly survey of 1,000 shippers.
The survey respondents named CSX, Canadian National, and Canadian Pacific as having the most improved service.
Although 28 percent of the shippers still expect rail service to deteriorate during the peak season, this is down considerably from 53 percent a year ago.
Shippers expect to pay a 4.4-percent average rail rate increase in 2006, meaningfully up from 3.7 percent in the first quarter and 3.5 percent a year ago. Forty-four percent of the survey respondents described full-truckload capacity as “balanced;” 34 percent described the full-truckload market as “tight” and 22 percent as “over capacity.” For the first time since 2001, no respondent saw “extremely tight” capacity. The survey found shippers see even greater less-than-truckload capacity availability.
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