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PORTLAND — In about the same amount of time it takes for an office coffee break — 25 to 30 minutes, give or take — a semi-truck pulls into Northwest Container Services.

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Steve Branscum, retired group vice president for BNSF Railway, and Mike Wilson, CEO of Consolidated Chassis Management, have received Silver Kingpin Awards from the Intermodal Association of North America during Intermodal Expo 2019 on Sept. 16.

Barges carrying shipping containers on the Arkansas River from as far as Asia and Europe is the goal of a company associated with an intermodal port that the Western Arkansas Intermodal Authority is attempting to develop near Van Buren, Ark.

Once touted as a key economic development tool for southwestern and central West Virginia, the $32 million Heartland Intermodal Gateway is likely to shut down this fall, and go on the auction block within a year, Transportation Secretary Byrd White said July 2.

It was a historically great year for trucking in 2018 with robust growth in revenue and better margins, but not all companies saw the benefits of a strong economy.

Instead of unloading the containers at the New York port and putting them on trucks there, the idea is to unload the containers onto a train that would take them to Buffalo.

Walmart has begun expanding the scope and capabilities of its private fleet, taking over store distribution from dedicated contract carriers at facilities in Maine, Indiana and Ohio, while also adding a new intermodal service using a proprietary container design and company drivers to provide drayage service.

Driven by tight trucking capacity and the threat of tariffs, intermodal volumes increased 5.6% in 2018, their highest growth in five years, according to the Intermodal Association of North America’s annual report.

Transportation industry groups are criticizing a plan by some ocean carriers to begin seeking new administrative fees for cargo containers, known as “street turns.” The fees are set to take effect Feb. 4 and range from $30 to $75, depending on the carrier.

Intermodal shipments grew 4.7% in the third quarter as companies stepped up imports ahead of promised U.S. tariffs on foreign goods and domestic shippers shifted from highway to rail in response to rising freight rates and constraints on truck capacity.