State-owned China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company, known as COSCO Group, is one of the world's leading marine transportation companies. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, COSCO Group operates a fleet of about 800 containerships, bulk carriers and other vessels with an overall capacity of 50 million deadweight tons. In addition, the company is engaged in freight forwarding, logistics, real estate, ship building and repairing, container manufacturing, and terminal operations. It maintains facilities in more than 160 countries around the world. COSCO Group should not be confused with a rival state-owned marine transportation enterprise with a similar name, China Shipping (Group) Company.

Half a load is better than none for Vitran: the company nets most of its sales from its less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation business. (LTL carriers combine freight from multiple shippers into a single truckload.) Vitran -- the name is short for vital transportation -- provides LTL service in Canada and in much of the US. Besides its LTL operations, Vitran offers logistics services in the US and Canada and provides truckload freight transportation in the US. Overall, the company operates a fleet of more than 5,600 tractors, trailers, containers, and other equipment from a network of more than 135 facilities, most of which are located in the US.

Staying cool is a must for Stevens Transport. An irregular-route, refrigerated truckload carrier (or reefer), Stevens hauls temperature-controlled cargo throughout the US, covering the 48 contiguous states. Through alliances Stevens also covers every province in Canada and every state in Mexico. The company operates a fleet of about 1,850 tractors and 3,100 refrigerated trailers from a network of more than a dozen service centers. Partnerships with railroads allow Stevens to arrange intermodal transport of temperature-controlled cargo. The company also provides third-party logistics services. Chairman and CEO Steven Aaron owns Stevens Transport, which he founded in 1980.

Trucker Trimac tries and succeeds in its efforts to move bulk cargo across a continent. A lead transporter of liquid and dry bulk products, Trimac Transportation Services operates a fleet of about 2,200 tractors and 5,000 trailers from a network of more than 100 terminals throughout North America. Trimac's logistics unit, Bulk Plus Logistics, operates in the US and Canada and offers such services as freight brokerage, supply chain management, and transloading (transferring cargo between trucks and railcars). Trimac's Canadian operations are owned by the publicly traded Trimac Income Fund, which is controlled by chairman and CEO Jeffrey McCaig and his family. Its US operations are privately owned.

MC Shipping is owned by an investment fund managed by Irving Place Capital, an affiliate of private equity firm Bear Stearns Merchant Banking. MC Shipping knows the rap when it comes to ocean freight transportation. The company's fleet of more than 20 vessels consists mainly of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) carriers; it also includes containerships. MC Shipping leases its vessels on time charters, bareboat charters (in which the lessee provides its own crew), and spot charters. Day-to-day operation of the company's fleet is overseen by independent ship-management companies. It has offices in Indonesia, London, Monaco, and Singapore.

AAA Cooper Transportation can freight your cargo from point A to point B. A regional less-than-truckload (LTL) freight hauler, AAA Cooper operates in the southeastern US and Puerto Rico; it also maintains facilities in Chicago, and a few other industrial crossroads. (LTL carriers combine freight from multiple shippers into a single truckload.) AAA Cooper Transportation operates close to 80 terminals, and the company's fleet includes about 2,000 tractors and 6,000 trailers. AAA Cooper Transportation also offers freight brokerage services and dedicated contract carriage. Chairman and CEO Mack Dove owns the company, which was founded by his father in 1955.

Conrail is the holding company for Consolidated Rail Corporation (CRC), a freight railroad system that operates in heavily industrialized regions of the northeastern US. Most of the railroad lines and switching and terminal facilities formerly operated by Conrail have been taken over by the company's owners, railroads CSX (42%) and Norfolk Southern (58%). Conrail, however, continues to operate some lines (in total, about 1200 miles) and facilities in the Philadelphia and Detroit metropolitan areas, and in much of New Jersey. To serve customers along those lines, CSX and Norfolk Southern pay Conrail for exclusive line access, and Conrail, through CRC, acts as the local switching and terminal management agent.

Crowley Liner operates a fleet of some 30 vessels, including tug and barge units, roll-on/roll-off, and lift-on/lift-off vessels, as well as intermodal equipment, such as containers, trailers, and chassis. Among its federal contracts, the liner won work to restore cargo delivery to Haiti following an earthquake in 2010. As the world trades, Crowley Liner Services heads for sea. The flagship unit of Crowley Maritime provides scheduled ocean transport services between the US and ports in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, Bahamas, Central America, as well as the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba. Cargo carried by the liner includes containers, trailers, oversized freight, hazardous materials, and vehicles of all kind.

Pass it on -- Kuehne + Nagel International is one of the world's top freight forwarding and logistics groups. Kuehne + Nagel (pronounced "KOO-nuh and NAH-gel") provides sea freight and airfreight forwarding, arranges the transportation of goods by road and rail, and offers customs brokerage services. The company's contract logistics unit offers warehousing and distribution services, and it manages more than 7 million sq. meters of warehouse space. Overall, Kuehne + Nagel operates from about 900 locations in more than 100 countries worldwide. Executive chairman Klaus-Michael Kuehne, grandson of the company's co-founder, owns a controlling stake in Kuehne + Nagel.

The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets railroad freight car equipment in the United States, Mexico, and Poland. It offers double-stack railcars; boxcars used in forest products, automotive, perishables, and general merchandise applications; covered hopper cars for grain and cement industries; gondolas and coil cars for the steel and metal markets; conventional railcars; center partition cars for the forest products industry; bulkhead flat cars; flat cars for automotive transportation; and solid waste service flat cars. The company also provides pressurized tank cars for liquid petroleum gas and ammonia; non pressurized tank cars for light oil and chemical products; coal cars; and sliding wall cars, as well as ocean-going barges, including conventional deck barges, double-hull tank barges, railcar/deck barges, barges for aggregates, and other heavy industrial products and ocean-going dump barges. In addition, it involves in the repair and refurbishment of railcars for third parties, as well as for its own leased and managed fleet; provision of wheel services, including reconditioning of wheels, axles, and roller bearings; and production of recondition railcar cushioning units, couplers, yokes, side frames, and bolsters, as well as roofs, doors, and associated parts for boxcars. Further, the company offers finance lease programs. Additionally, it provides management services that comprise railcar maintenance management; railcar accounting services, such as billing and revenue collection, and car hire receivable and payable administration; and fleet management, including railcar tracking, administration, and remarketing. The company also produces railcar castings through a joint venture. It owns approximately 9,000 railcars and provides management services to approximately 217,000 railcars for railroads, shippers, carriers, and other leasing and transportation companies. The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. was founded in 1974 and is based in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

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