A year ago, a half-dozen companies were contending in the race to develop commercially viable untethered trailer-tracking systems. Today, one company -- Orbcomm Global -- has clearly emerged as the one to beat.

In 1997, Norfolk Southern and CSX Corp. together anted up $10 billion -- $5.8 billion from NS and $4.2 billion from CSX -- and now they begin the official dismemberment of Conrail.

Conrail's disappearance this week means the end of a relatively short -- but fairly eventful -- railroad history.

On June 1, two of the biggest players in the railroad industry will each grab one side of a wishbone that joins somewhere around Cleveland and make a wish.

The pump price of diesel slid to an eight-week low last week, with a national average of $1.066 a gallon, just before the summer travel season began.

The national average retail price of diesel fell slightly, dropping to $1.075 a gallon May 17 from $1.083 a week earlier, and maintained the stability seen in recent weeks.

Trucking needs to remove itself from the list of industries that can be safely bashed. Any attempt to accomplish public policy goals — whether at the federal or state level — is bound to be much more difficult so long as politicians and bureaucrats believe that trucks are viewed negatively by the public.

Analysts are sticking to their predictions of a stabilization in diesel costs despite a half-cent rise in the price per gallon from last week.

Class 8 trucks sales maintained a torrid pace through the first four months of 1999 — more than 27% better than the mark reached at this point during 1998’s record-setting run.

Shipments of trailers and chassis in the first three months of 1999 fell short of the mark set in 1998 by nearly 14%, continuing a trend seen since the beginning of the year.