Comment / The autonomous train nobody noticed...

ID 435756 © Winterling | Dreamstime.com

In a nutshell: Intramotev and Parallel Systems are quietly commercializing autonomous freight railcars, and the implications for intermodal last-mile economics could be profound.

While the logistics industry remains fixated on the long-promised, perpetually-delayed arrival of autonomous trucking, something arguably more consequential has happened on the rails, and almost nobody in the forwarding world noticed.

St Louis-based Intramotev is the first company to commercially deploy autonomous freight railcars. Not a pilot. Not a demo loop at a trade show.

The ...