The Port of New York and New Jersey held its ExpressRail summit last week, and the numbers through August tell a clearer story than the headlines. Container traffic has beaten 2025 in six of eight months, peaking near 840,000 TEUs in March and holding around 790,000 in August. Ships are getting bigger, with more volume arriving on 14,000 to 17,000 TEU vessels. Rail lifts hit 682,000 over the trailing twelve months, up 1.7 percent, but rail’s share of port volume slipped to about 13 percent. More cargo is coming in, and more of it is leaving by truck. That is the drayage pressure showing up along I-78, I-81, and Central Jersey.
The sourcing and shipper data matters for site selection. China still accounts for 27 percent of imports but is flat, while Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Indonesia are all gaining share. Furniture, plastics, machinery, and electrical equipment remain the top commodity groups, with steel articles and toys growing fastest. Home Depot roughly doubled its port volume year over year, and Old Navy and Campbell went from near zero to meaningful counts. Moves like that tend to show up as new distribution requirements within a year or two. FTZ 49 handled $15.6 billion in 2025 across 25 active sites, and zone to zone rail transfers are becoming a practical tool for importers managing duty cash flow.
The railroads brought capacity commitments, not just talking points. CSX cut its train accident rate 30 percent, is redesigning yards at Buffalo, Selkirk, and Philadelphia, and is offering a 15 acre container yard next to its Chicago 59th Street terminal. Norfolk Southern is adding about 60 percent more parking at Detroit, 32 percent more track at Cincinnati, and support tracks at Columbus. The bigger development is the pending Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern merger, with an amended STB filing on April 30 promising single line service into the port from the West. For anyone evaluating rail served or near rail sites in 2027, two inputs deserve the most weight: those Class I capacity commitments, and producer price data showing truck rates still rising faster than rail.
