Corporate Profile

RailRunner N.A. is the creator of a Road-Ready Bi-modal Rail system, a railcar, trailer and container chassis system that is bringing container-based intermodal transportation service to the huge market of manufacturers, farmers, shippers, wholesalers and retailers who are not located near traditional intermodal hubs. The patented RailRunner Terminal Anywhere™ Technology makes intermodal transportation cost-effective for shorter distances and for smaller markets because it allows a shipper to shift from road to rail and back without the need of transloading any freight or the need for terminals and expensive cranes to lift the container from one mode to another. RailRunner's strategy is to build its business through RailRunner Service Operators: independent businesses that use RailRunner equipment to deliver container transportation service to local markets.

Beyond its substantial economic impact, the increased use of intermodal transportation – making the greatest possible use of energy-efficient rail – offers the opportunity to make a meaningful reduction in the environmental impact of global commerce. The fuel consumption per ton-mile of freight on rail is only about a third of highway consumption. That means a big reduction in carbon emissions, as well as costs. Shifting a shipment of 100,000 pounds of cargo from road to rail for 1,000 miles, for example, reduces carbon dioxide emissions by about 6,300 pounds.

The reality of global commerce is that every year, more and more freight moves around the world by container. As the pace of global trade and the need for more specialized products continue to accelerate, it is the container that provides the logistic foundation.

As a consequence, container intermodal traffic, marrying the advantages of water to rail and highway transport, has been growing rapidly. The volume of containers shipped by rail in the United States has increased from 8.6 million units in 2002 to a projected 12.3 million in 2007, according to the Intermodal Association of North America.

The economic and environmental benefits of this combination of containerized goods and intermodal traffic, however, has not yet reached deep into the infrastructure of the North American, European and Asian economies, where much of the world’s manufacturing and agricultural bases are located. In many large segments of the world, shippers have been unable to use the advantages of rail to reduce their transport costs because they don't have the consistent volume of shipments to justify a traditional intermodal hub close to the source of production. Moving containers from mode to mode - ship to rail to truck and back - has always required huge amounts of trackside real estate and substantial capital investment in terminals built around massive cranes or a shift to non-standard, non-container intermodal vehicles. Thus only large transportation hubs could serve as transfer points to provide the flexibility and cost saving that containerized intermodal transport offers.

RailRunner N.A., Inc., is the first company to bring the advantages of standard container-based rail transport to a much wider market of manufacturers, farmers, shippers, wholesalers and retailers in a cost-effective system, thus dramatically extending the reach of intermodal rail shipping. RailRunner’s Road-Ready Intermodal Rail makes intermodal transportation cost-effective both for shorter distances - less than 1,000 miles - and to smaller terminals. Manufactured goods, specialized agriproducts, etc. can actually be loaded into containers right at the factory or farm. The container mounted on a RailRunner chassis can be pulled by truck or locomotive and easily shifted from one transport mode to the other. This allows shippers to keep their products 'identity preserved' in the same container, whether on highway, rail or ship, all the way to the customer's loading dock.

RailRunner launched its first commercial operation in August 2004 with regular service connecting Jacksonville, a major container terminal serving Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, and Ft. Wayne a major center for midwest manufacturing that does not have container-handling equipment. This spring, North Star Rail Intermodal LLC will begin offering container-based shipping to Western Minnesota from Montevideo, MN, using RailRunner technology. North Star will primarily handle agricultural products, including high-value, identity-preserved grain.

After many years of development, testing, and initial commercial operation, RailRunner now is poised to bring its innovative technology to a wide array of markets throughout the U.S. and abroad.