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WalMart is one of the largest intermodal shippers in the US. Betcha you're surprised to hear that. However, they don't do this directly. Rather, they hire large truckload and IMC carriers to handle it for them (i.e. Schneider National was WalMart's Intermodal Carrier of the Yr. last year.) They use JB Hunt a great deal as well and several others. I believe that their strategy is to allow these carrier to do what they do best in service to WalMart. Sooooo - what about all those WalMart tractors and trailers you say????? WalMart works with these intermodal providers to move the freight from the import consolidators to a WalMart Distribution Center (mega-warehouse). ...or the intermodal provider takes the product from domestic vendors to the distrib center. Then WalMart uses their own private fleet of tractors and trailers to move the product, on demand from the distrib centers to the store. The other big US retailers are also big users of intermodal - they do it in a similar way through intermodal carriers. There's a lot of value in this model for the retailer because they don't have to have the expertise and contract in managing rail moves. They don't need to have the intermodal compatible equipment (trailers / containers), they don't need to manage local drayage (trucking) and they don't have to try to create balance to get equipment into markets where the demand lies. All this stuff gets done by the intermodal providers that they hire. If you look at the AAR stats on intermodal traffic, you'll see how it spikes up greatly from Sept 1st to about Thanksgiving. That's the fall retail surge riding on the rail with these intermodal providers.
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