With the pending sale later this year of UPS Freight to TFI International, leadership changes are taking place in anticipation of the new ownership.

Canadian National on April 26 reported a slight decline in income and revenue for the first quarter, but company executives during a conference call with investors spent as much time discussing the railroad’s move to seize ownership of Kansas City Southern as they did discussing their own railway’s financial results.

An epic battle is in the early stages with Class I railroad powerhouses Canadian National and Canadian Pacific competing with multibillion-dollar bids to purchase the smaller Kansas City Southern railroad.

The continued surge of e-commerce deliveries from small and medium-sized businesses, along with the increase in deliveries of the various COVID-19 vaccines and other personal protective equipment, bolstered UPS Inc.’s first-quarter financial results.

While diesel prices remained flat according to data released this week, experts are warning of rising prices headed into summer as a shortage of tank truck drivers threatens to tighten supplies.

Inclement weather in much of the area where Union Pacific Railroad operates — Midwest, South and parts of Texas — is being blamed for the decline in first-quarter earnings.

Canadian Pacific officials aggressively defended their planned $25 billion acquisition of Kansas City Southern, announced in March, during a conference call April 21 regarding first-quarter earnings.

CSX Corp. reported lower first-quarter income and revenue compared with 2020, officials for the Class I railroad said April 20.

On both coasts, the nation’s ports continued their record pace for container volumes in March as goods keep coming into the U.S., nearly 14 months into the COVID-19 pandemic.

Truck tonnage in March declined on an annual and month-to-month basis, but the year-ago decline is up against comparisons to the first month that the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the nation, said American Trucking Associations Chief Economist Bob Costello in the federation’s monthly For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index release.