While a measure of total U.S. freight shipments in October broke a string of being in negative territory for 20 months, November fell back while separate reports for the month show an improvement in intermodal rates for the second consecutive month while truckload linehaul rates turned lower. The Cass Freight Index, which measures the volume of shipments and expenditures for freight shipments across all transportation modes, showed in November that shipments declined 0.5% from November 2015 and posted a wider 3% drop from October.
