Phenomenal Trucking Boom Ends,

[drbrumley]

Trucking Bust Starts

Sales of Class 8 trucks (18-wheelers) hit the ditch in January, with orders down 58 percent from a year ago hitting a level not seen since October 2016, near the end of the transportation recession, “when Class-8 truck orders had plunged to the lowest levels since 2009, and truck and engine manufacturers responded with layoffs,”

 

[ok doser]

the markets oversaturated with rolling stock?

 

[drbrumley]

the markets oversaturated with rolling stock?

I would say best case scenario is a yes...its showing transportation needs cooling off though.

 

[ok doser]

interesting glimpse at the interconnectedness of various industries:

The trucking business is a barometer of, and dependent on, the goods-based economy. In late 2017 through the summer of 2018, demand for transportation services, such as shipping by truck, surged under the simultaneous impact of a strong goods-based economy led by red-hot e-commerce; a buildup of inventories; pandemic front-running of potential tariffs, a resurgence of drilling activity in the oil patch that required equipment and supplies to be trucked in, etc. Freight rates spiked. Squeezed shippers wheezed in their earnings reports about these spiking transportation costs, while truckers were on Cloud-9 and ordered new trucks to meet the demand, and truck manufacturers were swamped with orders.

 

[ok doser]

I watch 700 foot freighters go past my front window nine months of the year, loaded with ore, stone, grain, etc - bulk haulers - also container ships and tankers - all to feed industries and population centers on the St Lawrence Seaway/Great Lakes and beyond - wheat grown on the prairie states and provinces goes past my window to keep hungry russians fed through the winter

 

[JudgeRightly]

I wonder how much the recent ELD mandate and the future of self-driving trucks have affected this...

As a truck driver myself, I wish we didn't have to deal with such restrictions at all.