A comparative empirical analysis of U.S. domestic rail and intermodal freight volumes across the 2007-2009 Great Recession and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, using shipment data and macroeconomic indicators to characterize the depth of decline, the pace of recovery by commodity type, and the lead/lag timing relative to economic drivers. The central finding is a structural contrast in disruption dynamics: the Great Recession produced a slow, multi-year onset and rebound, while COVID-19 caused a profound but short shock with a rapid roughly five-month recovery and intermodal traffic sometimes surpassing pre-pandemic levels, evidencing the resilience of rail freight within the broader logistics system.
This paper compares how U.S. domestic rail and intermodal freight volumes responded to two major economic disruptions: the 2007-2009 Great Recession and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Using rail and int…