Line-Haul

Line-haul is the over-the-road movement of freight between terminals, generally over long distances. It is the main, line-of-road portion of a shipment's journey, as distinct from the local work of picking up, delivering, and switching cars at either end.

What It Includes

The line-haul is the part of the trip where a built train runs from one terminal to another. After cars are gathered and sorted in a classification yard and assembled into an outbound train, that train departs and runs across the railroad to a distant terminal, where the cars are again sorted for their next leg or for final delivery. Line-haul movement is what railroads are especially efficient at: moving large volumes of freight long distances at low cost per ton-mile.

What It Excludes

Line-haul is generally understood to exclude the pickup and delivery of individual cars at industries and the switching that happens within yards and terminals. Those local activities - spotting cars at a customer, pulling loaded cars, and reclassifying them - are separate from the line-of-road run. When a shipment moves over more than one railroad, each road performs its own line-haul over its portion of the route, with the cars passing between roads in interchange.