Intermodal’s historic growth

Chart of the Week: Outbound Domestic Loaded Rail Container Volume – USA SONAR: ORAILDOML. USA Domestic loaded rail container (48’ and 53’) volumes are running well ahead of the same point in every year back through 2020, but the annual growth rate of nearly 13% in June is the story.

The move isn’t a blip — volumes have been building steadily since spring and have held near the top of the range throughout the month. Domestic intermodal demand tends to peak in the fall as retailers replenish inventories for the holiday season. This year’s summer volume surpassed last year’s peak season volumes.

These containers should not be confused with the international sized (20’ and 40’) units that are more directly tied to import demand. Domestic intermodal competes more heavily with transcontinental truckload, though the rise in truckload costs and limitation of capacity on the east coast have shown that intermodal can compete in shorter haul lanes as well.

The above tree map shows annual growth rates for the seven day period ending 7/16/2026, illustrating a very even growth of domestic intermodal demand across the U. S. window. googletag = window. googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag. cmd. push(function() {googletag.

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push(function() {googletag. display('div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0'); }); The strength lines up neatly with what J. B. Hunt just told Wall Street. The Lowell, Arkansas-based intermodal and dedicated giant reported second-quarter results this week that blew past estimates, with intermodal volumes hitting a record.

Loads were up 10% year over year, outpacing the 8% y/y growth logged across the Class I railroads and well ahead of the 5% y/y increase in North American container volumes overall. Darren Field, the company’s president of intermodal, said conversion activity from truck to rail is running at levels not seen in more than a decade.

That’s an unusual thing to hear in the middle of summer. Intermodal’s bid season doesn’t formally open until October, and the catalysts that typically trigger conversion — climbing truckload rates and rising diesel prices — weren’t really present when the current bid season kicked off last fall.

Instead, shippers appear to be moving early, and the SONAR data on the chart backs that up: growth has been broad-based across the calendar rather than concentrated in a short pre-bid window. Part of the story is cost.

SONAR’s Intermodal Contract Savings Index currently shows domestic intermodal running about 30% cheaper than truckload on a contract basis, well beyond the 10% to 15% discount that J. B. Hunt says is typically needed to pull freight off the road. J. B.

Hunt’s own container fleet was more than 90% utilized in the quarter for the first time in several quarters, and management flagged “massive opportunities” for further conversion in the East, where intermodal is more directly competitive with truckload rates and where its volumes were up 16% y/y in the quarter (31% on a two-year stack).

Rail service is part of the equation too, though not entirely in the way one might expect. Rail speeds have been slowing, but that hasn’t been enough to slow shipper demand — a sign that price is doing more of the work right now than transit time. The risk to the sector isn’t really on the rail itself; it’s in the connective tissue around it.

Drayage capacity has tightened enough that J. B. Hunt flagged driver wages as a cost headwind for its intermodal unit, and transloading remains a pinch point in markets where import flows are uneven. That points to a market where demand is genuinely running ahead of the seasonal norm rather than simply comparing favorably to a soft prior year.

The rejection-rate and spot-rate data across truckload has been elevated for the past several months, and intermodal’s ability to undercut truckload contract pricing by such a wide margin gives it room to keep pulling freight.

The bigger question is whether rail networks and their surrounding drayage and transloading infrastructure can keep absorbing this pace of conversion without the service cracks that have derailed similar pushes in the past. For now, the chart says the freight is showing up regardless.

About the Chart of the Week The FreightWaves Chart of the Week is a chart selection from SONAR that provides an interesting data point to describe the state of the freight markets. A chart is chosen from thousands of potential charts on SONAR to help participants visualize the freight market in real time.

Each week a Market Expert will post a chart, along with commentary, live on the front page. After that, the Chart of the Week will be archived on FreightWaves. com for future reference. windo