Intermodal Volumes Are Hitting New Highs, but Drayage Capacity May Be the Bigger Q4 Constraint

Domestic intermodal volumes entered October at their strongest levels of 2026, extending a rail rebound that has been building for months. But as freight shifts back to rail, the next reliability risk is no longer just linehaul capacity. It is the local drayage network that has to pull 53-foot domestic containers in and out of ramps, warehouses and plants.

That weak link moved to the foreground on Oct. 1, when the Journal of Commerce reported that the pool of drivers available to haul domestic 53-foot containers has shrunk since the freight downturn that began in late 2022, making it harder for intermodal providers to react quickly to the current volume surge. The same week, FreightWaves said its 7-day moving average of loaded domestic intermodal containers hit an annual high of 21,697 on Sept. 28, up roughly 8% year over year.

The rebound is real — and broad enough to matter

The volume story is not limited to one proprietary index. The Association of American Railroads said U.S. railroads averaged nearly 297,000 intermodal containers and trailers per week in August 2026, up 4.4% from a year earlier and a new monthly record. AAR also said year-to-date intermodal volume through August was the highest ever, with August marking the seventh straight year-over-year gain.

Weekly data has stayed strong into September. In the week ending Sept. 5, AAR reported 299,148 U.S. intermodal units, up 18.0% from the same week in 2025. Across North America, intermodal volume that week reached 386,079 units, up 15.9% year over year.

That aligns with IANA’s September 2026 Intermodal Volume Index, which rose 1.5% from August and 5.2% from a year earlier. IANA said the reading reflected both normal peak-season strength and an ongoing domestic share shift away from long-haul trucking.

The economics are reinforcing the move. FreightWaves said its Intermodal Contract Savings Index was still around 30.9% on Sept. 30, after peaking above 33% in mid-August, with some lanes showing much wider rail savings versus current truck spot pricing. That helps explain why intermodal demand is rising even as service has moderated somewhat under heavier volumes.

Why the bottleneck is local, not generic truckload

For industrial freight, intermodal is only usable if the container can be picked up at origin, grounded at the rail terminal, pulled promptly at destination, and delivered into a facility with a workable appointment window. The linehaul rail move may have capacity. The failure point is often the short-haul dray move on either end.

That is why this is not just another trucking-tightening story. The problem is specifically the labor and equipment base tied to domestic 53-foot container drayage — a niche that depends on local drivers, chassis access, terminal familiarity, and short-cycle productivity around rail ramps. If that local pool is thin, more rail linehaul volume does not automatically translate into dependable door-to-door service.

The carriers themselves are saying as much. In its second-quarter 2026 earnings release, J.B. Hunt said intermodal volume rose 10% year over year and that demand increased through the quarter because customers faced higher fuel prices and constrained driver and capacity availability in other modes. On its earnings call, company executives said quarterly intermodal volume topped 578,000 loads, a record for the business, and added that “the same supply challenges affecting truckload capacity are impacting the drayage market, where driver availability remains tight,” even as the company works to recruit more drivers.

Schneider was more explicit. In its second-quarter call, management said over-the-road conversion opportunities expanded, but “drayage has become the primary constraint.” Schneider said it deliberately avoided growth that would have required expensive third-party drayage before pricing caught up with the added cost, and said it was investing specifically to grow dray capacity.

Even providers with broad intermodal networks are feeling the cost pressure. Hub Group said first-half 2026 results were hurt by higher fuel, rail and drayage costs, and that tightening market capacity supported over-the-road conversion opportunities even before related rate increases were fully reflected.

What changed between 2022 and now

The current squeeze is a lagging consequence of the long freight downturn that began in late 2022. During that period, transportation providers cut costs, parked assets, lost drivers, or exited certain markets altogether. Rebuilding local drayage is slower than simply declaring more rail capacity available.

Drayage fleets have to recruit in local labor markets, absorb higher insurance costs, restore utilization, and decide whether volume is durable enough to justify bringing equipment and drivers back. Unlike over-the-road networks, local drayage operations are highly terminal-specific. A carrier that exited one inland ramp market in 2023 cannot instantly recreate that density when volumes snap back in late 2026.

That helps explain why executives are talking about disciplined growth rather than a broad reopening of capacity. J.B. Hunt said it has used sign-on bonuses and targeted wage increases in select markets as the driver market tightened. Schneider said market conditions were forcing it to increase recruiting resources and starting pay in the most constrained geographies. Those are not signs of an idle, easily reactivated labor pool.

Rail growth does not remove execution risk at the ramp

Intermodal’s current momentum is strongest where rail service and highway conversion economics are best. J.B. Hunt said its Eastern network volumes grew 16% year over year in the second quarter, versus 5% transcontinental growth, underscoring the importance of shorter-haul and eastern conversion lanes. Norfolk Southern also said its second-quarter 2026 intermodal volumes grew 5%, supported by favorable truck-market conditions and consistent service, while it promoted its new East Edge corridor linking Chicago and New England.

But greater rail opportunity can also mean more handoffs, more terminal touches, and more exposure to local fluidity problems. Union Pacific recently argued that single-line intermodal service can reduce unnecessary handoffs and “minimize exposure to drayage delays and missed connections” — an unusually direct acknowledgment that local dray friction is now part of the service equation.

There are also signs that inland rail nodes still matter as much as headline volume totals. The Surface Transportation Board in August required additional reporting from the Belt Railway of Chicago after expressing concern about rising car volumes and dwell times at Clearing Yard. While that reporting concerns broader rail service rather than domestic container drayage specifically, it is a reminder that gateway congestion and local execution can quickly compound each other when networks are running fuller.

What this means operationally in Q4

For shippers and industrial consignees, the practical risk is not that intermodal suddenly becomes unavailable everywhere. The bigger risk is that service becomes less forgiving.

A thinner drayage base can show up as:

• slower pickup from destination ramps even when linehaul rail service is acceptable;
• fewer same-day recovery options after a missed appointment or plant schedule change;
• more dependence on pre-booked local capacity rather than spot coverage;
• higher exposure to dwell, storage, per-diem or accessorial costs if containers sit too long;
• more selective acceptance of freight in difficult terminal markets; and
• a wider reliability gap between routine replenishment freight and truly time-critical freight.

This matters most for freight tied to plant operations, maintenance outages, construction schedules, project cargo support, and distribution networks with tight receiving windows. In those environments, a rail move that looks economical on paper can still fail operationally if the ramp-to-door segment is under-resourced.

What remains uncertain

Two questions still matter heading deeper into the fourth quarter.

First, it is not yet clear how concentrated the pressure is by corridor or terminal. Public reporting points to strong eastern conversion demand and continuing national volume gains, but hard terminal-by-terminal drayage availability data remain limited.

Second, the rail side is still holding up relatively well. AAR’s monthly data, IANA’s September index and major IMC commentary all support the view that intermodal demand is being met at a meaningful scale. The real issue is whether local truck capacity can rebuild fast enough if volumes continue climbing into the holiday and year-end industrial push.

FreightWaves’ forecast that loaded domestic intermodal volumes could grow by another 4% heading into Thanksgiving suggests that this is not likely to be a one-week story. If that trajectory holds, local drayage will matter more, not less.

What to watch next

The most useful leading indicators now are not just rail volume prints. They are signs of stress in the handoff layer:

1. Destination ramp pickup performance

If containers are available but not leaving ramps quickly, local capacity is usually part of the problem.

2. Appointment lead times at warehouses and plants

Thin drayage markets become far less resilient when receiving windows are narrow.

3. Third-party drayage use by major IMCs

When providers lean harder on purchased drayage, margin pressure and service variability usually rise.

4. Out-of-cycle pricing changes

Schneider said intermodal pricing renewals and out-of-cycle increases accelerated in the second quarter. That is often a sign that providers are trying to catch up to a faster-than-expected tightening cycle.

5. Mode discipline on urgent freight

The more a shipment is tied to production uptime or a non-movable delivery window, the less safe it is to assume intermodal remains the default relief valve.

For CAP Logistics readers, the takeaway is straightforward: rail capacity headlines are only part of the Q4 picture. When domestic intermodal volumes are rising this quickly, the more important question is whether destination and origin drayage can actually support the service plan — especially for plant-sensitive and schedule-critical freight.