One of the first things to understand about rail intermodal is that some lanes are more competitive with the highway than others.
In dense lanes with very long lengths of haul, like Los Angeles to Chicago, a trip that exceeds 2,000 miles, it’s easy for rail intermodal to undercut truckload on price. In that lane, the per-mile cost advantage that intermodal has on the rail linehaul and fuel surcharge portions of the total cost generally more than offset the relatively high per-mile first- and...