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Brandt Truck Line, an 88-year-old less-than-truckload carrier based in Bloomington, Ill., shut its doors Tuesday, giving no prior notice.

Unfamiliar words such as “stability” and “price increases” are creeping into the less-than-truckload sector’s vocabulary these days, after a turbulent two years of rate cutting, market-share swings and some astronomical losses.

Following recent rate increase announcements by three major less-than-truckload carriers, industry experts said the LTL sector has turned the corner toward profitability, with shipment volumes, tonnage and rates all improving, but not yet soaring.

Shoe and clothing manufacturers are fuming at a decision that preserves less-than-truckload carriers’ freedom to raise shipping rates for shoes by up to 50% and could quadruple prices to ship clothing.

Less-than-truckload carriers as a group posted solid volume gains and stabilized their shaky revenue environment in the first months of 2010, experts said.