Corn Exports Surge as Rail Mergers Face Scrutiny
The latest Grain Transportation Report from the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service highlights significant upticks in corn exports and updates on rail merger proceedings. For the week ending August 13, corn inspections at Mississippi River terminals reached 1.1 million metric tons, a 176 percent increase over the prior three-year average.
This surge aligns with above-average corn volumes on the Mississippi River System, where an average of 494,000 short tons moved over the past four weeks, up 19 percent from last year and 53 percent from the three-year average. Pacific Northwest inspections totaled 0.4 million metric tons, nearly 200 percent above average.
The Surface Transportation Board resumed its review of the proposed Union Pacific Railroad and Norfolk Southern Railway merger on August 18. The American Transportation Research Institute released its 2026 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, showing that 2025 trucking costs rose across all major line-items, with industry-average cost per mile reaching $2.336, up 3.4 percent from the previous year.