The Weekly Shipment: Highlights: Expert Call on the Opportunity in Intermodal

Research evidence excerpt

The Weekly Shipment: Highlights: Expert Call on the Opportunity in Intermodal

Deutsche Bank

Research

North America Industry Date

Transportation The Weekly Shipment 18 June 2026

Highlights: Expert Call on the Opportunity in

Richa Harnain, CFA Intermodal

Research Analyst

+1-212-250-6285

We’ve had quite the week, which kicked off with an interesting discussion

Amid ongoing questions about the group’s sharp start-of-week Megan Makini

underperformance — which we framed as more “pause than problem” in our Research Associate

+1-212-2501458 recent Freight for Thought – we also had an enriching conversation with Larry

Gross, a 45+ year expert on the Opportunity for Intermodal. The key question:

can rails use improving service and tightening truckload capacity to regain lost

intermodal share without giving back the profitability gains investors now value?

A key takeaway: Consistent IM growth may require more operational flexibility

Our discussion with Mr. Gross spanned the split between international and

domestic intermodal, the drivers of recent share loss versus truckload, the role of

PSR in limiting network flexibility, and what railroads may need to change to

reignite growth. More details on this and other topics are at the back of this note

(with timestamps so readers can follow along via the replay link). Gross’s central

point though was that rails may need to focus less narrowly on OR improvement

and more on network flexibility if they want to more sustainably capture the

intermodal opportunity.

So, what multiple do we put on Rails that can potentially (and more sustainably)

reignite growth while sporting the best margins across transportation?

First off, we don’t think Gross’s point was that rails need to sacrifice profitability

wholesale to grow. And we would agree.