It's not looking good........

Things are going down no doubt. But if you have a good customer base its not too bad. My rates are not down, still getting the same money I was last year and fuel is down so overall it's better this year for profit.

 

I agree,cost of fuel is making up for the slight drop in rates my usual bunch of customers are quoting.

 

Not all rail traffic is based on truck traffic. Crude trains were a big portion of class 1 railroads freight volumes. Those are way down compared to a year or 2 ago as well as coal trains.

 

My rates are up. Volume is down probably about 10% give or take by year's end. I never did a lot of business anyways so that hurts a lot. I do agree though it sure is nice to have fuel cost around 20% or less. In years past before fuel dropped so sharply it was always a little under 30%.

 

Yes you should see more profit as fuel prices soar and surcharge kicks in.
But most companies give there customers a chance to purchase a set FSC.
So it will lock the price for a month or a quarter etc.
Plus they usually lock you in with whatever their company trucks average MPG wise.
You can never depend on FSC as profit.

 

My rates have creeped up incrementally every year since I started in 2011. This year my rates have actually creeped up the most. I can tell you one thing for sure is that when that mother of all capacity crunches comes around my rates are not going to be holding steady at all. They're going up, up, up. Imo, regardless of what fuel does if your rates are not creeping up year after year you are losing money cause nothing is getting cheaper out here.

 

Intermodal has been slowing for about 3 months.

 

AGREE!
FSC has gotten too many companies in trouble when it fluctuates and they seriously depend on it. It needs to be done away with across the board and compensated in rates exclusively.
We work off a set rate with no hidden crap like FSC, the rate is what it is to move the freight.
Banning the FSC SCAM would have been useful in the transportation bill IMO.
It was a short term band aid fix that has outlived its benefit to the industry as a whole and has ultimately damaged the freight rate system.

 

The whole "no fsc" thing might work for an independent, but for those of us running % plus fsc for a carrier, we're better off getting 100% of that portion of the freight bill rather than splitting that with the carrier (who doesn't pay for the fuel).