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A roundup of the week’s most-read rail — intermodal, Class I service, ports, and the bottlenecks in between.
| ● Clear |
FreightWaves Rail · Sept 3, 2026 |
Sub: Class I & Regulatory |
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| Bulletin Orders |
FWRX · No. 09·03 |
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From the desk of Stuart Chirls · Railroads · FreightWaves & Trains.com
The Greenbrier Cos. CEO Lorie Tekorius is set to retire … the change now means one less woman in a top leadership role in the U.S. rail industry … in 30 years at the company and CEO since 2022, Tekorius guided GBX through the dark days of the post-COVID freight recession to emerge as a leaner, stronger player in the exclusive club of public rail equipment suppliers … Jean Savage, CEO of rival Trinity Industries, BNSF’s Katie Farmer and Tracy Robinson of CN lead the most powerful women in rail …
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| Featured · Class I · Regulatory |
◆ Class I · Regulatory
FreightWaves Rail · Sept 1, 2026
The Surface Transportation Board pushed back the deadline for parties to formally notify their intent to participate in the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger review from Sept. 4 to Sept. 30, granting extra time to roughly 12,000 local governments in railroad-served communities after the National League of Cities cited the Labor Day holiday crunch.
| Caution |
The extension doesn’t change the STB’s ultimate review timeline, but it’s another sign the review calendar keeps stretching — shippers should expect the drawn-out process to continue into 2027. |
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Read the full bulletin → |
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◆ Class I · M&A / Regulatory
FreightWaves Rail · Aug 27, 2026
Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern urged the STB to reject preliminary challenges to their merger application, touting more than 88,000 new county-to-county service lanes, $1 billion in projected annual operating savings, and up to 2.1 million truckloads shifted to rail.
| Caution |
The railroads’ rebuttal is aimed squarely at a growing opposition coalition of elected officials, state attorneys general and shippers — whether the application clears regulatory thresholds is far from settled. |
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Read the full bulletin → |
◆ Intermodal · Volumes
AAR’s weekly rail traffic report showed U.S. carloads and intermodal units up 4.2% year over year for the week ending Aug. 22, with chemical shipments climbing 6% after recent declines and grain up 9%, even as motor vehicle carloads fell more than 10%.
| Signal |
Broad-based volume growth — now running 3.3% ahead of last year through 33 weeks — points to a network moving more freight across most commodity groups heading into fall. |
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Read the full bulletin → |
◆ Class I · Locomotives
Norfolk Southern and Wabtec are converting 33 ES44DC locomotives to AC-traction ES44ACM models through 2027, extending a modernization program that has already completed more than 1,000 DC-to-AC conversions since 2015.
| Signal |
More efficient, more reliable locomotives translate into better on-time performance and lower long-term operating costs for shippers relying on Norfolk Southern’s network. |
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Read the full bulletin → |
◆ Safety · Regulatory
Vice President JD Vance and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin asked the EPA’s inspector general to investigate whether the Biden administration withheld Defense Department modeling — which initially projected up to 1,900 people in a "death possible" zone — from the East Palestine, Ohio community before the 2023 vent-and-burn of vinyl chloride from a derailed Norfolk Southern train.
| Caution |
A new federal probe into the handling of the East Palestine disaster keeps rail safety and hazmat response squarely in the political spotlight, more than three years after the derailment. |
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Read the full bulletin → |
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Reading the Rails
Powered by  · Intermodal Dashboard
The week’s total U.S. rail carload volumes, pulled straight from SONAR’s Intermodal Dashboard.
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Total Carloads
240,021
▲ +1.75% w/w
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6-Mo. Average
225,247
▲ +6.6% above avg
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vs. 2025
188,673
▲ +27.2% above 2025
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vs. 2024
183,990
▲ +30.5% above 2024
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● SONAR · Total U.S. Carloads, 12-Month Trend — RTOTC.USA
Weekly total carloads jumped to 240,021 this week, up 4,136 cars (+1.75%) and running about 6.6% above the six-month average of 225,247 — another new 12-month high, extending the streak set last week.
● SONAR · Total U.S. Carloads, Year-over-Year Comparison — RTOTC.USA (2023–2026)
Layered against the past three years, 2026’s carload volumes (blue) continue to pull away from the comparable points in 2025 (188,673) and 2024 (183,990), now running more than 27% and 30% ahead respectively — the widest gap yet this year.
| Signal |
Carloads posted a second straight 12-month high, now running nearly a third ahead of the same point in 2024 — a strong clear-track signal for shippers heading into fall peak, though the historical lines still show a seasonal falloff typically arriving by Q4. |
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Powered by · Intermodal Dashboard
See the whole rail picture in SONAR
Every figure above is live in SONAR’s Intermodal Dashboard — carloads, container volumes and year-over-year moves, refreshed daily across every mode.
Explore the Intermodal Dashboard → |
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October 27 – 28, 2026 · The Signal, Chattanooga
F3: Future of Freight Festival
Your team works hard every day to keep supply chains moving. This Labor Day, invest in their growth—and your company’s bottom line—by sending them to F3: Future of Freight Festival (Oct. 27-28 in Chattanooga). Get ahead of market trends and regulatory shifts, experience the latest FreightTech insights that directly impact your margins, and expand high-value relationships with 1,000+ supply chain leaders spanning the industry.
Register Now → |
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