Reference
A container changes hands a dozen times between the factory and your door. These are the businesses that own each leg of the trip — and how they hand the box off to one another.
Origin to destination, each role passes the sealed box to the next.
Scroll sideways to see every phase →
Solid bars show where each business operates; the dashed bar marks the cargo owner, present across the whole trip. The inland end (port, rail, destination) is the most crowded — where IMCs, drayage carriers, and chassis pools all converge.
Own and operate the vessels and set deep-sea schedules.
Carriers move the box across the ocean. To fill ships efficiently they form alliances — vessel-sharing agreements that pool slot capacity on a trade lane without merging the companies or their pricing.
Groupings as of 2025: Gemini Cooperation, Ocean Alliance, Premier Alliance — with MSC operating largely on its own.
3 + 1major alliance groupings plus MSC standalone (2025)The gateway where the ocean leg meets rail and road.
A port authority governs the land; the marine terminal is the operator that berths ships and loads and unloads containers. The largest U.S. container gateways move millions of TEUs a year.
Los Angeles, Long Beach, and New York/New Jersey are the three biggest U.S. container gateways.
10.3MTEUs through the Port of Los Angeles in 2024Run the long-distance rail line-haul at the heart of intermodal.
The largest freight railroads, defined by an inflation-indexed STB revenue threshold. Six operate in North America: BNSF, Union Pacific, CSX, Norfolk Southern, CN, and CPKC. (A proposed UP–NS merger is under STB review, not approved.)
6Class I railroads operating in North America todayThe capillaries that connect local shippers to the national network.
Smaller regional and local railroads (STB Class II and III) gather and deliver traffic to and from the big carriers, reaching customers the Class I roads do not serve directly.
~140Kmiles in the U.S. freight rail networkBuy rail intermodal wholesale and resell door-to-door service.
An intermodal marketing company purchases rail capacity directly from the railroads, arranges the drayage and equipment, and sells finished door-to-door service to shippers under a single freight bill. IMCs exist because railroads sell intermodal wholesale, not retail.
1 billthe IMC bundles rail, dray, and equipment into one freight billHandle the critical first and last miles by truck.
Drayage carriers haul the box between ports or rail ramps and the shipper or consignee. Every interstate motor carrier must register with the FMCSA and hold a USDOT number, and shippers vet them through the SAFER system.
~102Mdrayage moves across the North American network each year (per IANA)Supply the wheeled frames every road move depends on.
Ocean carriers once owned the U.S. chassis fleet and handed them to truckers for free. Beginning around 2009 they divested to neutral leasing firms and shared pools, so any trucker can draw a chassis from a common fleet.
Major neutral operators are named for identification only: DCLI, TRAC Intermodal, and Flexi-Van.
51% → 17%carrier share of U.S. chassis ownership, 2009 to 2013The end customers the whole system ultimately serves.
A BCO is the importer or owner of the goods that manages its own freight rather than handing it to a forwarder. Because railroads sell wholesale, BCOs typically reach intermodal rail through an IMC.
Company names appear for identification only. Blue Current is not affiliated with, and this page does not imply endorsement by, any company named here. Figures are cited on the data & sources page.
