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Nontraditional bank lending to trucking companies picked up moderately in the second half of 2016 as fleets sought to survive during a sluggish freight market, according to lenders with exposure in transportation financing.

Union Pacific, the nation’s largest railroad, has acquired the refrigerated and cold-storage facilities of Railex in Rotterdam, N.Y., Wallula, Washington, and Delano, California.

While many in the industry believe this year will be better than 2016, trucking executives are concerned about shippers trying to lock in low rates to get ahead of the curve on the contract market.

Maersk, the world's largest container shipping line, has teamed up with Alibaba to allow customers to reserve space on its vessels through the Chinese company, illustrating growing cooperation between e-commerce and logistics firms.

Swim or sink: That’s the message shipping executives in Asia are taking into the new year.

After four consecutive years of record-breaking intermodal growth in the railroad industry, container and trailer traffic dropped 1.6% in 2016, according to data from the Association of American Railroads.

Construction has begun on an intermodal terminal at the Global Container Terminals in Bayonne, New Jersey, to connect on-site to CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads and to offer an alternative that could result in fewer containers being placed on trucks.

XPO shareholders overwhelmingly approved a plan Dec. 20 to increase the maximum number of shares the company can issue to executives as compensation, to 2.5 million shares from 500,000, easily overcoming opposition from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.