US Intermodal Rail Ramps, IPI and Container Moves Explained

When an import container is bound for an inland US city, it often does not stay on a truck from the port. It is lifted onto a train at or near the port, rides to an inland rail ramp, and is then trucked the last miles to the consignee. Ocean carriers sell that journey under labels such as IPI (interior point intermodal, also written inland point intermodal), RIPI, mini landbridge and micro landbridge. The label tells you which port the box passes through, who arranges the rail leg, and how far the ocean carrier's responsibility reaches. The key takeaway: the train is only one leg of the move. A truck handles both ends of it, a separate clock for storage starts at the ramp, and the paperwork you hold decides who pays when something slips. This guide covers the terms, the ramp, the equipment and the delays, and it states where the Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern merger review stands as of 6 October 2026.

What IPI, RIPI, mini landbridge and micro landbridge mean

These are commercial routing terms used in ocean carrier tariffs and service contracts. They are not defined in US law, and carriers word them slightly differently, so always read the definition in the tariff or contract that applies to your booking. Sample service-contract wording published on Law Insider shows the common usage for the first three terms.

Two points are worth keeping straight. First, "landbridge" in US usage means rail across North America linking an ocean service on each coast. It is a different idea from the overland workaround routes used to reach Gulf destinations, which have nothing to do with US rail ramps. Second, US law has its own plain-English definitions that sit behind all of these labels. Under 46 U.S.C. 40102, through transportation is continuous transportation between origin and destination for which a through rate is assessed, offered or performed by one or more carriers, at least one of which is a common carrier. The inland portion is the charge for the non-ocean part of that move.

Carrier haulage or merchant haulage: who owns the rail leg

The most useful question to ask about any inland routing is who arranges and is liable for the rail leg. Under carrier haulage, the ocean carrier (or an NVOCC reselling its service) arranges the inland move under a through rate and remains the contracting party, even though a railroad and a trucker do the physical work. Under merchant haulage, the importer or its agent books the inland leg and contracts directly with the rail or truck provider, usually from the port or from a ramp onward. Our guide to inland container depots and dry ports sets out the general difference; this section covers how it looks on a US import.

• Bill of lading. An IPI or landbridge booking is normally a through bill of lading with a place of delivery inland, for example "Chicago, IL", and a port of discharge on the coast. A merchant-haulage booking usually ends at the port, and a separate arrangement carries the box on. See bill of lading types explained for the document itself.
• Liability on the rail leg. In Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha v. Regal-Beloit (decided 21 June 2010), the US Supreme Court held that the Carmack Amendment does not apply to a shipment that originates overseas under a single through bill of lading, so the bill's own terms and the ocean-carrier liability regime govern the inland leg. A damage or loss claim is fact-specific, so treat this as background and not as a prediction.
• Customs. Cargo that clears at an inland point generally travels in bond. Under 19 CFR Part 18, in-bond merchandise needs CBP movement authorization through an approved electronic system before it moves, and it must be delivered to the destination port within 30 days of the conveyance arriving, with examination time excluded. Check with your customs broker which entry type applies to your routing.
• Cost visibility. A carrier-haulage quote is often one number to a ramp or door. A merchant-haulage setup breaks it into ocean freight, rail, drayage and storage, which gives control but also more places to be surprised.

Two misconceptions are worth correcting. An IPI rate does not mean the ocean carrier's vessel ETA is also your delivery date: the rail leg runs on its own schedule, and an inland date in a booking confirmation is usually an estimate. And an IPI rate to a ramp does not include the final truck from that ramp to your warehouse unless the contract says "door". Ask whether the quote is to a CY (ramp) or to a door before you compare it with another offer.

What happens at the rail ramp

The ramp is where a container leaves the railroad's custody and enters yours (or your trucker's). The steps, in the order they usually happen:

1. The train arrives and the container is lifted off the railcar. Railroad terms describe a unit as grounded and available for outgate once it is ready to leave.
2. The railroad notifies the notify party named on the shipment that the unit is available. That notice, not the arrival time, is what starts the free-time clock.
3. Your trucker books the pickup, secures a chassis and an appointment where the terminal requires one, and gates the container out. This is the pull.
4. If the box stays past free time, the railroad's storage charges begin on top of anything the ocean carrier or chassis provider is already charging.
5. The empty container is returned to the place the ocean carrier directs. This is often a different yard from where you pulled it, which is why our guide to empty container return matters here as much as it does at a port.

A concrete example of ramp storage, taken from Union Pacific's own published policy. Union Pacific states that international traffic gets 48 hours of free time starting at 0001 after the day the unit is notified, and domestic traffic gets 24 hours. Its storage schedule for international and domestic units at all its terminals reads as follows, with the dates from its customer announcements.

Other Class I railroads publish their own free-time rules and rates, which differ and change, and Union Pacific's page itself says its tariffs, circulars and contracts supersede what the website shows. Treat the table as an illustration of scale, not a quote. It also shows how a delay compounds: a box left unclaimed for ten days is paying a rate several times the day-one rate, while the ocean carrier's own per diem may still be running.

Who is actually billed depends on the contract. The railroad's announcements do not say, and in a carrier-haulage move the ocean carrier is typically the railroad's customer and recovers charges under its own inland tariff. Which charges are lawful to bill, and on what timetable, is a separate topic: the FMC rules on invoicing are summarised in our FMC demurrage and detention billing guide. As of 23 September 2025 a federal court set aside one section of that rule (46 CFR 541.4, on who may be invoiced), and the rest stays in effect. Note that the rule's text names ocean carriers, NVOCCs and marine terminal operators as billing parties and does not by its terms list railroads, so whether a given ramp charge falls under it depends on who is billing and in what capacity. Ask your carrier or forwarder to identify the billing party in writing.

Drayage at both ends of the rail leg

Rail does the long distance, but a truck still handles the short distance at each end. At the origin, a container may be loaded onto a train at an on-dock or near-dock rail yard, or it may need a short dray from the terminal to an off-dock ramp, depending on the port. At the destination, a dray collects the box from the inland ramp and delivers it to the consignee, then returns the empty. Both draymen deal with appointments, gate queues, chassis availability and driver hours, all of which are covered in our US drayage and chassis guide.

That matters for planning because the cheapest line in an IPI quote is often the rail leg, while the biggest source of variance is the trucking and the waiting around it. If you control the final dray (merchant drayage from a ramp), you need a trucker lined up before the notification arrives, because free time starts when the railroad notifies, not when you are ready.

53-foot domestic containers versus 40-foot ocean boxes

The box on your IPI train is usually an ocean container. A different, larger box dominates North American domestic intermodal. The two should not be confused, because they move on different equipment and under different rules.

The practical consequence is transloading. Importers sometimes unpack 40-foot ocean boxes at a warehouse near the port and reload the cargo into 53-foot domestic units for the inland haul, instead of paying for ocean-container rail. A 53-foot box holds noticeably more cubic volume than a 40-foot high cube, so the arithmetic depends on cargo density, handling costs and the rate each railroad offers. There is no universal winner, so compare both on a landed-cost basis. For the sizes themselves, see our guide to container types and dimensions.

Weight is the other trap. The federal limit for gross vehicle weight on the Interstate system is 80,000 pounds (23 U.S.C. 127), and a container that is within its ocean payload limit can still push a truck and chassis over what the road allows once the tare weights are added. State rules and permits vary. Our guide to container weight limits and VGM explains the payload side, and your trucker can tell you what the chassis combination will carry.

Why rail dwell and ramp congestion cause delays

A ramp delay is rarely one failure. It is a chain of small waits, each of which feeds the next:

• Notification lag. A box can sit on the ground before the notify party is told it is available, and a late notice pushes everything back. Free time at Union Pacific, for example, does not begin until notification.
• Chassis and appointment shortages. If no chassis or gate slot is available, the box waits even though it is formally released.
• Dray capacity. Truckers prioritise loads that fit their day. A ramp pickup that needs a long queue may be pushed to the next day.
• Empty return limits. A trucker with a delivered empty may have nowhere to put it if the designated yard is full, which adds detention days.
• Network volume. When trains are heavy, terminals have less room. The Association of American Railroads reported U.S. weekly intermodal volume of 301,610 containers and trailers for the week ending 26 September 2026, up 6.3 percent from a year earlier, and 10,778,696 intermodal units in the first 38 weeks of 2026, up 4.1 percent. Those figures include domestic traffic and trailers, not only ocean containers, so read them as a sign of scale and not as a measure of ramp congestion.

This guide deliberately quotes no network-wide dwell figure. Railroads and the AAR publish their own, defined differently and revised often, and an undated dwell number is worse than none. If you need one, take it from the railroad or the AAR with its date and definition. Meanwhile the best defence is practical: ask the carrier for the rail ETA to the ramp, get a trucker booked early, and know your free-time end date before the box arrives.

Where the Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern merger stands (as of 6 October 2026)

Union Pacific has proposed acquiring Norfolk Southern. The Congressional Research Service dates the announcement to 29 July 2025 and notes that historically a Surface Transportation Board (STB) decision has taken a year or more from the date an application is accepted. The dated facts below come from the STB's own releases except where marked as reported, and contested claims are labelled as such.

• 28 May 2026: the STB accepted the revised application for consideration but placed the proceeding in abeyance and required supplemental information, which the applicants filed on 7 July and 27 July 2026.
• 18 August 2026: the STB adopted a procedural schedule and removed the proceeding from abeyance. Comments on the application, including protests and requests for conditions, are due 18 November 2026, and responses are due 16 February 2027. A public hearing date had not been set in that release. The STB stressed that the decision was not a ruling on the merits.
• 18 September 2026: the STB denied motions asking it to dismiss the application outright. The motions were filed by BNSF, CSX and a group of shipper associations. As reported by trade press, the Board said more evidence and argument would help its decision and that the parties could renew their arguments in their comments.

No final decision date appears in the STB material confirmed for this guide, so none is given here. The applicants' own estimates of closing and of savings, and any claim that a combined network would be faster, are their statements and are being tested in the proceeding. Supporters (the CRS report notes the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach among them) point to the removal of a rail interchange, while BNSF, CSX and several shipper groups have opposed or sought conditions. For an importer today, nothing in the ramp mechanics above changes. Your rates and free-time terms come from the carriers and railroads as they operate now, and any change would follow an STB decision, not precede it.

Checklist before you agree to an inland routing

• Is the quote to a ramp (CY) or to a door? Who does the final dray?
• Is it carrier haulage on a through bill of lading, or merchant haulage that you book yourself?
• Which port and which railroad does the routing use, and what is the rail ETA to the ramp?
• How many free days apply at the ramp, when does the clock start, and what are the daily storage rates after that?
• Where is the empty returned, and who pays if it cannot be returned on time?
• Does the cargo clear at the port or inland, and who files the in-bond movement?
• Is the cargo within the road weight limits once the chassis is added?

What to do next

1. Ask each forwarder or carrier to define IPI, RIPI or landbridge in writing as it applies to your quote, and to state whether the price ends at a ramp or at a door.
2. Get the free-time and storage terms for the specific railroad and terminal, with an effective date, and put the end date in your shipment calendar.
3. Line up a drayage provider for the ramp pull before the box arrives, and confirm chassis and appointment requirements.
4. For a high-volume lane, compare ocean-container rail with transloading into 53-foot units on a landed-cost basis, including weight limits and handling.

If you are comparing inland routings and want more than one offer, more than 29,300 logistics companies are searchable by country and service in the CargoLinked directory. You can also post the lane on the requests board, which lists freight that shippers have posted for forwarders to quote on directly. For wider routing choices across modes, see our guide to multimodal freight planning.

This guide is general information, not legal, customs, tax or financial advice. Railroad storage rules, tariffs, FMC and STB proceedings and CBP procedures change, so confirm current terms with the railroad or carrier, the regulator, or a licensed customs broker or freight professional before you rely on them.