Western Railroad Discussion > Marten Transport gives up on intermodal

They had not turned a profit on their container reefer biz in 2 years, so they sold 1200 boxes and contracts to Hub Group.  
Their boxes are still out there, but many have their road name whitened out.    Marten was one of the more prolific truckers to use the rails over the decades.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/marten-sells-intermodal-unit-to-hubgroup-which-grows-its-refrigerated-footprint


 

I see a lot of Marten on BNSF, but never any HUB group on BNSF. I wonder if that will change. 

okcrr Wrote:
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> I see a lot of Marten on BNSF, but never any HUB
> group on BNSF. I wonder if that will change. 

Hub group is exclusively on UP and NS while BNSF is all in on JB Hunt...hence why Hub group is one of the companies promoting the NS-UP merger. Given that reality, very unlikely Hub group starts showing up in any appreciable manner on BNSF trains into the foreseeable future.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/10/25 06:35 by AaronJ.

okcrr Wrote:
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> I see a lot of Marten on BNSF, but never any HUB
> group on BNSF. I wonder if that will change. 

HUB Group used to be a primary customer of the BNSF until the early-mid 2000's.  During that time, BNSF was providing HUB with intermodal equipment (trailers and domestic containers), but when BNSF decided to no longer provide this equipment to anyone (requiring the customer to provide these for themselves), HUB went to the UP which was, and still is, providing this equipment if their customers want that (through their EMP and UMAX operations).  Apparently, HUB decided to invest in their own equipment any ways.

JB Hunt has been very aggressive getting into the temperature controlled domestic container game over the last few years, investing in a huge fleet of reefer containers.  Because of the tight relationship BNSF and JB Hunt have together, some major trucking firms felt they were being handled second class at BNSF when compared to JB Hunt, so that was implied as one of the reasons they went to UP (a lower freight rate from UP is probably another reason).  Schneider National and Swift are two big one's that made this move over the past years.  I am suspect to this talk that BNSF plays favorites with JB Hunt when compared to their other customers (talking about the same class of service here), as UPS certainly still seems like the "top dog" that gets management attention at BNSF (of course UPS pays for this premium too).  BNSF has also been successful at growing other customers' business as well; for example recently, BNSF announced enhanced service with LTL carrier Estes Express Lines (those trailers and containers with the giant "E" on them).

It is also interesting to note the difference in the relationship structure BNSF has with JB Hunt when compared to what all the railroads have with their trucking and IMC customers.  The BNSF - JB Hunt relationship structure is more of a partnership than that of a simple service provider - customer relationship.  Here, BNSF and JB Hunt share the revenue of their business together instead of BNSF charging JB Hunt just a freight rate to move JB Hunt traffic.

Marten is one of only a handful of refrigerated intermodal providers whose trailers or containers I've seen on the Z trains on Donner over the past few years. (The others are Hub Group, CR England, and Frozen Food Express.) I'd love to see more perishables going by rail over Donner and fewer semis on I-80.