The responsive applications are in + if you were hoping for a quiet autumn, we have bad news for you. David + Harris work through what BNSF, CSX, CPKC, + CN each asked for if the UP–NS merger gets approved + what those asks give away about where the Class Is think the industrial economy is heading. Anyone else have Pennsylvania + the Gulf as the freight rail destinations of 2026?

Then, of course, comes the part nobody could have possibly priced in at the beginning of the year. Diesel is sitting comfortably above six dollars a gallon, WTI is over a hundred, oil inventories are sitting at a 20-year low, + railcars are being retired faster than they can be built.

And finally, Barstow. BNSF is spending BIG money in the middle of the Mojave Desert + Harris went deep into causal diagrams + old Jay Forrester papers to figure out why.

Talk Track, hosted by Harris Ligon + David Correll of Telegraph™, is a spin-off series dedicated to timely rail industry news. From service shakeups to technology breakthroughs, each episode delivers a behind-the-scenes perspective on all the happenings shaping the future of freight rail.

Harris + David will bring their decades of rail experience to help them parse through the latest industry headlines, evolving regulations, + the long-term forecasts for how railroads move freight across North America. Find us at telegraph.io/insights, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

About Our Hosts

Harris Ligon is the co-founder + CEO of Telegraph. Prior to launching Telegraph, he spent nearly 15 years in surface transportation at Uber Freight, Norfolk Southern, + BNSF Railway. During this time, he led teams in operations, strategy, business development, + product development.

David Correll is the Director of Freight Market Intelligence at Telegraph. He has spent two decades in transportation and logistics with the US Department of Transportation, the US Department of Energy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Clark University.

About Telegraph

Telegraph is a leader in delivering digital solutions to railroads, shippers, logistics service providers, terminals, + railcar leasing companies. With an integrated platform that prov...

Harris + David break down the Fourth Edition of the Telegraph Market Consist, out now. What’s inside? Q2 carload volumes came in up 6% against our own forecast of down 5%, so the conversation starts with what the model missed, why chemicals flipped from down 11% last quarter to up 9% this quarter, + what the "Washington Hat Trick" thesis means for the rest of the year.

They also get into what shippers should be thinking about for the upcoming bid season. Namely that every Class I signalled the same thing to investors on their Q2 calls, which we are reading as a 2% to 5% increase across the board this fall. Plus: roughly 35% of the US tank car fleet are out-of-compliance DOT-111s, which comes just as Congress weighs pulling the phase-out forward to December 2028 + subsidising telematics on those same cars.

Download the Q3 2026 Market Consist to follow along with the conversation.

Talk Track, hosted by Harris Ligon + David Correll of Telegraph™, is a spin-off series dedicated to timely rail industry news. From service shakeups to technology breakthroughs, each episode delivers a behind-the-scenes perspective on all the happenings shaping the future of freight rail.

Harris + David will bring their decades of rail experience to help them parse through the latest industry headlines, evolving regulations, + the long-term forecasts for how railroads move freight across North America. Find us at telegraph.io/insights, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

About Our Hosts

Harris Ligon is the co-founder + CEO of Telegraph. Prior to launching Telegraph, he spent nearly 15 years in surface transportation at Uber Freight, Norfolk Southern, + BNSF Railway. During this time, he led teams in operations, strategy, business development, + product development.

David Correll is the Director of Freight Market Intelligence at Telegraph. He has spent two decades in transportation and logistics with the US Department of Transportation, the US Department of Energy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Clark University.

About Telegraph

Telegraph is a leader in delivering digital solutions to railroads, shippers, logistics service providers, terminals, + railcar leasing companies. With an integrated platform that prov...

Harris + David unpack the presentation Harris delivered at MARS + the research behind it. The headline finding: train speed + volume are negatively correlated, which means record service metrics may say more about a thin network than a well-run one.

From there, the conversation turns to the constraints on growth. Is freight rail demand constrained, or is it really that supply is constrained? What happened to service between 2014 + 2024 as the industry chased operating ratio? Why should rail be indexed to industrial production rather than GDP? And what does it mean that, over the past twenty years, every dollar of capital expenditure has been matched by roughly a dollar fifty returned to shareholders?

Slides available on our website www.telegraph.io + on the Telegraph LinkedIn page.

Talk Track, hosted by Harris Ligon + David Correll of Telegraph™, is a spin-off series dedicated to timely rail industry news. From service shakeups to technology breakthroughs, each episode delivers a behind-the-scenes perspective on all the happenings shaping the future of freight rail.

Harris + David will bring their decades of rail experience to help them parse through the latest industry headlines, evolving regulations, + the long-term forecasts for how railroads move freight across North America. Find us at telegraph.io/insights, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

About Our Hosts

Harris Ligon is the co-founder + CEO of Telegraph. Prior to launching Telegraph, he spent nearly 15 years in surface transportation at Uber Freight, Norfolk Southern, + BNSF Railway. During this time, he led teams in operations, strategy, business development, + product development.

David Correll is the Director of Freight Market Intelligence at Telegraph. He has spent two decades in transportation and logistics with the US Department of Transportation, the US Department of Energy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Clark University.

About Telegraph

Telegraph is a leader in delivering digital solutions to railroads, shippers, logistics service providers, terminals, + railcar leasing companies. With an integrated platform that prov...