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All publicly traded freight railroads reported higher profits in the first quarter, led by a strong rebound in coal transportation from the doldrums of recent years and continued improvement in the intermodal sector.

Many trucking and third-party logistics companies still write checks to pay their invoices, but efforts are underway to transition from pen and paper to point-and-click e-payments. If successful, it would shift decades-old business patterns ingrained in the industry.

Consumer confidence rebounded last week as Americans became the most upbeat about the economy since 2001, the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index figures showed April 27.

Union Pacific’s profits increased 9.5% to $1.07 billion dollars, or $1.32 per share, after strong results on a year-over-year basis in the coal, agricultural and intermodal transportation.

Profits at Universal Logistics Holdings Inc. fell 42% year-over-year despite 9.2% growth in revenue during the same period, which the company acknowledged was due to problems with a few of its large value-added programs.

Norfolk Southern Corp. announced that profits increased 12% in the first quarter as a result of strong rebounds in coal and intermodal business compared with early 2016.

Sandwiched between “soft pricing” and unyielding costs, intermodal, trucking and brokerage company Hub Group reported a significant decline in first-quarter net income even as revenue increased.

Swift Transportation reported profits plunged 84% in the first quarter compared with 2016 as truckload carriers suffered from continued excess capacity and lower contract prices than they had hoped for this year.

MONTRÉAL — Mercer Transportation Co. is a regular at the Mid-America Trucking Show because the flatbed carrier and MATS share Louisville, Ky., as a hometown — but that was not a reason to avoid ExpoCam.