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Rail intermodal levels rose last week but overall carload traffic continued a downward trend for the year, the Association of American Railroads said Thursday.

Surface trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico dipped 0.1% in December from the same month a year earlier, though both truck and rail numbers rose, the Department of Transportation said.

The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index for February rose to positive territory from January’s contraction, ISM said Thursday.

Transportation and logistics firm EGL Inc. said its fourth-quarter income fell to $10.9 million or 27 cents a share, from $19.1 million or 47 cents in the previous fourth quarter.

The new chairman of the pivotal House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. James Oberstar, said he would support a pilot program to test the effects that raising truck size and weight limits would have on the nation’s highways.

U.S. Delays Border Inspection Fees • Charleston Port Sets New Security System • Oshkosh Wins $878 Million Army Contract • Survey Highlights Traffic Congestion Concern

Transportation stocks, including airlines, trucking companies and railroads, were among the hardest hit in Tuesday’s stock market tumble, the Associated Press reported.

WASHINGTON — Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), a key transportation legislator and a longtime opponent of increasing truck sizes and weights, told Transport Topics he would now support a pilot study of larger vehicles on U.S. highways.

Trucking executives said efforts to ban the use of cellular phones from the nation’s highways would receive industry support as long as state laws do not also ban two-way radios and satellite communication devices.

On Oct. 20, American Trucking Associations, in conjunction with “Road Safe America,” a group of nine trucking companies, submitted a petition to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.