“On a February morning in 1990, the first J.B. Hunt intermodal load departed Chicago via the industry’s first collaboration between trucking and railroad companies, bringing to life the vision of company founder Johnnie Bryan Hunt and Santa Fe Railway President (now BNSF Railway) Mike Haverty,” Lowell, Ark.-based JBHT reported Feb. 6. “The two named the service Quantum, a testament to its innovative approach and potential significance.”
That intermodal move was first demonstrated out of Chicago in 1989 for the benefit of Hunt and some of his executives, resulting in “the famous handshake agreement” between him and Haverty*, Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono related recently. “Haverty had a JBHT trailer loaded onto an ATSF flat car that was coupled to a business car at the rear of the consist. He was able to show the superior ride quality that Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Co. could provide for a JBHT trailer, up close and personal. Shortly afterward, he took Hunt and his board of directors on a train ride from Chicago to Kansas City. As legend has it, as the train reached Galesburg, Ill., Hunt, a larger-than-life personality who typically sported a ten-gallon hat, extended his hand to Haverty and said, ‘Let’s do a deal.’ That handshake resulted in an agreement to use the railroad to haul JBHT long-distance trucks from the West Coast to Chicago, initiating a contract that to this day remains one of BNSF’s most lucrative.”
The companies developed a double-stack shipping solution that would complement both rail and trucking services, which BNSF has said was “a first for modern transportation”** and “set the standard for seamless door-to-door service.”
“Intermodal started as an idea to bring two services together and create a customer-focused, efficient solution,” JBHT President and CEO Shelley Simpson said Feb. 6. “This dream was brought to life by teams working closely together, never losing faith in the belief of a better way to move freight, one rooted in integrity, respect, safety and excellence. It changed freight transportation forever and set the company on a path of continued innovation, sparking 35 years of growth and expansion.”
J.B. Hunt Intermodal
Starting with just 150 trailers, J.B. Hunt Intermodal is now said to be the largest intermodal service in North America, with a company-owned fleet that includes more than 122,000 containers and 6,500 tractors. Its “innovative concept of double-stacking containers reduced load/unload timing and generated efficiency, which drove growth and adoption among customers,” according to JBHT.
By 2000, JBHT’s intermodal service had expanded to become its own business unit. In 2003, J.B. Hunt Intermodal became the company’s largest revenue source and remains so today.
“In 2010, J.B. Hunt Intermodal moved more than one million loads in a calendar year for the first time in company history, only to surpass that milestone in 2018 when the company moved two million loads in a year,” JBHT reported. Most recently, it said, J.B. Hunt Intermodal set historic company records for quarterly, monthly, and weekly intermodal volumes in 2024.
“The long-term impact of intermodal demonstrates just how groundbreaking the service has been,” said Darren Field, President of Intermodal at JBHT. “Intermodal has been a driving force for reducing the amount of long-haul over-the-road freight. This means unmatched efficiency and sustainability benefits for customers. For our drivers, it gives them more quality time at home with their families. Thank you to our people, customers and rail providers all over North America for 35 years of helping us set the standard of great intermodal service. Along with investments in our people, technology, and capacity, your momentum continues to fuel intermodal’s potential. As Mr. Hunt would say, we’re just getting started.”
JBHT-Railroad Partnerships
Over the course of 35 years, JBHT said it has forged relationships with all major North American railroads that it still builds on today. “The company has worked closely with each to improve the operational efficiency of its service, including the addition of features such as onsite terminals and express gates,” it noted.
JBHT opened its first transload facility in 2021 to better serve customers with international freight and has since expanded to several additional locations, encompassing five of the largest ocean ports and the largest land port of entry into the U.S.
The company and BNSF, along with Grupo Mexico’s (GMXT) Ferromex, in 2023 introduced a Mexico service through the Eagle Pass, Tex., Border Gateway. That same year, JBHT and BNSF would reintroduce Quantum.
“Quantum is a product that shows the value of J.B. Hunt and BNSF’s deeply integrated systems, allowing us to provide a high-quality service,” JBHT said. “As we look to the future, both companies are fully aligned in our investments in new technology and multimodal capacity to improve customer experience, drive productivity and strengthen our leadership position in the market. Our joint pursuit to address the needs of our customers remains at the core of everything we do.”
“BNSF and J.B. Hunt have long understood that intermodal is underutilized relative to its potential to create value for supply chains,” BNSF President and CEO Katie Farmer said. “By collaborating together through a foundation we have built over three decades, we’re unlocking that potential for customers to better utilize intermodal to meet their freight needs by bringing more dependability and capacity to the intermodal supply chain.”
According to JBHT, J.B. Hunt Intermodal “leads the industry in converting over-the-road shipments to rail, which on average reduces a shipment’s carbon footprint by 65% versus highway truck transportation.” Over the past decade, the company said its intermodal service has helped avoid an estimated 30 million metric tons of CO2e emissions.
To read more about JBHT’s history, click here.
* Editor’s Note One: Railway Age’s 2001 Railroader of the Year was Mike Haverty, who at that time was Kansas City Southern President and CEO.
* Editor’s Note Two: Southern Pacific (SP), along with Malcom McLean, devised the double-stack intermodal car in 1977. SP then designed the first car with ACF Industries that same year. In 1984, American President Lines started working with Union Pacific, and that same year, they launched Stacktrain, the first all-double-stack transcontinental train. It departed Los Angeles for South Kearny, N.J., transferring from UP to the Chicago & North Western Railway and then to Conrail.
Further Reading:
- J.B. Hunt to Purchase Walmart’s Intermodal Assets
- J.B. Hunt to Acquire BNSF Logistics’ Brokerage Assets
- BNSF: Creating a Superior Customer Experience With New, Improved Technologies
- 2023 Railroader of the Year: Katie Farmer, BNSF
- J.B. Hunt Adds Washington State, Texas Operations
- J.B. Hunt 3Q19: PSR Helped—A Little
