FreightCasts

In this episode of FreightWaves Today, hosts Julie Van de Kamp and Malcolm Harris break down the latest supply chain headlines, including a major LA rail cargo bust, 247Services' cross-border expansion, and Uber's $2.3B acquisition of ezCater.

Trains Magazine Editor Bill Stevens and Trinity Industries CFO Eric Marchetto join the show to analyze recent rail traffic trends, equipment fleet capacity, and trade tariff uncertainties.

Malcolm has his meteorologist debut in the SONAR update as he and Julie track Hurricane Isaias's potential impacts on Gulf Coast freight and fuel refining capacity.

Finally, John Conrad, Chief Revenue Officer at Evans Transportation Services, stops by the studio to discuss the true meaning of managed transportation, the role of AI in 3PL operations, and current carrier pricing dynamics.

⁠Follow the FreightWaves Today Podcast⁠

⁠Other FreightWaves Shows⁠
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of WHAT THE TRUCK?!?, hosts Malcolm Harris and Michael Vincent cover key industry headlines before sitting down for an in-depth interview with three-time founder Tristan Bordeleau. The hosts break down major supply chain news, starting with the LAPD's recovery of $1 million in stolen BNSF and Union Pacific rail cargo from a Whittier shoe retailer, which included high-value goods like Nike footwear, Yeti cups, and Shark vacuums. They also examine the legal nuances of a civil RICO lawsuit filed by six trucking companies against C.H. Robinson—comparing precedents like Anza v. Ideal Steel and Bridge v. Phoenix—and discuss TA Services expanding its US-Mexico cross-border network by acquiring assets from Carmen Pacheco Transportation and Intermodal Cartage. Additionally, the duo analyzes Wall Street's reaction to C.H. Robinson's $6 billion acquisition of RXO and what the deal means for the broader 3PL landscape.

The main segment features Tristan Bordallo, who draws from his 22 years of experience in brokerage and fleet ownership to share lessons on carrier liabilities, rising operational costs, and the importance of founder vulnerability. Bordallo discusses shifting his focus to Fr8topia, a boutique brokerage serving local consumer packaged goods (CPG) and natural product brands in Los Angeles. He also tackles the ongoing divide between brokers and carriers, stressing that greater transparency, aligned interests, and leading with quality service are essential to repairing relationships in today's fast-moving freight market.

⁠Watch on YouTube⁠

⁠Visit our sponsor - TRUCKSTOP.COM⁠

⁠Subscribe to the WTT newsletter⁠

⁠Apple Podcasts⁠

⁠Spotify⁠

⁠More FreightWaves Podcasts⁠

#WHATTHETRUCK #FreightNews #supplychain
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we kick things off in Southern California, where law enforcement just uncovered a massive cache of stolen rail freight hiding in plain sight. Los Angeles Police Department detectives searched a Whittier shoe retailer and discovered 59 pallets of branded merchandise connected to stolen BNSF and Union Pacific rail cargo totaling about one million dollars. The recovered property included Nike, New Balance, Brooks and Sanuk footwear, along with Yeti cups, JanSport backpacks, and Shark vacuums, and led to the arrest of the business owner on suspicion of receiving stolen goods.

Meanwhile, a major expansion is reshaping the U.S.-Mexico cross-border logistics landscape. Mansfield, Texas-based third-party logistics provider TA Services announced it has acquired two Texas trucking companies, adding 133 power units and a massive 550,000 square feet of warehousing to its growing cross-border network. The transaction expands TA Services' footprint in El Paso and Laredo—two critical gateways for freight moving between the U.S. and Mexico—and strengthens the company's ability to serve manufacturers in the expanding industrial corridor.

Finally, we explore how Uber is making a colossal bet on high-value business deliveries as Uber Technologies agreed to acquire workplace catering platform ezCater for $2.3 billion in an all-cash transaction. The deal combines ezCater's corporate catering business with Uber Eats and Uber for Business, giving Uber access to a large pool of higher-value, scheduled deliveries with an average order value exceeding four hundred dollars.

Follow the FreightWaves Today Podcast

Other FreightWaves Shows
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host Thomas Wasson sits down with Drew Farwell, Chief Operating Officer at Midwest Carriers, live from the Barkcast booth at Trimble Insight 2026. Drew breaks down the operational philosophy behind his whitepaper, "The Next Generation TMS: From Load-Centric to Network-Centric Intelligence," and why traditional transportation management systems fall short in today’s complex trucking landscape.

In this episode, they discuss:

The Load-Centric Fallacy: Why viewing freight as individual, isolated transactions misses the bigger picture of round-trip costing, equipment moves, and total network efficiency.

Asset Utilization & Unused Capacity: Managing drop-and-hook operations, reefer pre-cooling costs, trailer pools, and non-revenue equipment moves.

Capturing "Commitment Intelligence": How tracking lost opportunities and unawarded lanes from RFPs helps carriers price smarter and optimize network health.

The "Madden Profile" for Fleet Operations: Leveraging AI and predictive modeling to build individual driver and asset profiles—evaluating performance, safety, and operational fit like stats in a video game.

The Future of Human-AI Collaboration: Moving dispatchers away from manual data entry toward high-level network orchestration.

⁠Follow the Loaded and Rolling Podcast⁠

⁠Other FreightWaves Shows⁠
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The freight industry continues to digest C.H. Robinson's acquisition of RXO, described as the largest brokerage M&A transaction in history. Craig and Julie speak with Chris Wofford, founder and managing partner of Wofford Advisors, for a deeper look at the roughly $5.8 billion transaction, the importance of the $300 million in expected synergies, the challenges Robinson will face in delivering those savings, and what the deal could mean for competition, market consolidation and the next wave of M&A across freight and logistics.

The episode also features an in-depth conversation with ImportGenius co-founder and CEO Michael Kanko about what shipment-level trade data reveals about the U.S. economy and the ongoing trade war. Kanko explains how ImportGenius tracks nearly 8 billion international shipment records, offering granular visibility into products, shippers, receivers and sourcing patterns. The discussion covers shifting import activity in China, Vietnam and Mexico, the gap between Chinese and U.S. trade data, compliance and enforcement applications, and the company's push for the Manifest Modernization Act to bring greater transparency to air cargo.

The show also takes a closer look at freight capacity through a SONAR market update, challenging the idea that rising operating authorities necessarily mean more trucks are entering the market. Julie examines elevated tender rejections, relatively modest truckload volume growth, declining new-fleet tractor counts and the barriers keeping capacity from returning, including driver availability, insurance, litigation, regulation and diesel costs. The outlook points to a capacity-constrained market through early 2027 and potentially longer, with tractor counts, fleet miles and the gap between tender volumes and rejections emerging as key indicators to watch.

⁠Follow the FreightWaves Today Podcast⁠

⁠Other FreightWaves Shows⁠
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices