When working with railroads and intermodal marketing companies, shippers hold in high esteem service providers that can put their shipments on the fast track. "I look for a carrier that continues to upgrade its service levels," wrote one respondent to our rail and intermodal survey.

Survey respondents told us that they also seek out railroads, intermodal service providers, and intermodal marketing companies that offer clear, prompt communication. Said one reader: "We look for responsiveness to inquiries on in-transit status and estimated time of arrival."

Finally, first-rate service providers will go "off the track" to bring home excellent service to the customer. "Performance and customer service are very important," wrote another respondent. "We view our customers as Number One, and the only way we can treat them that way is with good carrier service."

This year Logistics Management's readers flagged three carriers as providing the best standard rail service: Burlington Northern Sante Fe, Canadian National, and Norfolk Southern. All three carriers tracked higher than the benchmark weighted score of 28.60.

It should be noted that as a group, railroads did not fare as well as they did last year. The composite average score derailed from 30.45 to 28.60. Marks got sidetracked in three categories: on-time performance fell from 9.44 to 8.56; value from 7.31 to 6.90; equipment and operations from 4.99 to 4.54; and customer service from 5.8 to 5.16. Only information technology chugged uphill, rising from 2.92 to 3.44.

This year two intermodal service providers made the quality grade. Pacer Stacktrain and Burlington Northern Santa Fe both rolled ahead of their competitors. The overall weighted score for this category slid downward, falling from 31.875 last year to 31.21.

Finally, four intermodal marketing companies earned honors for superior service. Readers lauded Matson Integrated Logistics, Landstar Logistics (intermodal service), Schneider Intermodal Services, and C.H. Robinson. All four scored higher than the weighted average of 33.84.

Those four stood out from the crowd as scores for Intermodal Marketing Companies as a group rose in all five attributes. The score for performance increased from 9.73 to 10.45; value from 7.41 to 8.11; information technology from 2.84 to 3.64; customer service from 6.31 to 6.42; and equipment and operations from 5.15 to 5.22. No surprise, then, that the overall weighted score headed upwards from 31.45 last year to 33.84 this year.