🎣 AI Boom. Freight Waiting.

TGIF. The data center construction boom is supposed to be flatbed's next "super cycle," but now a wrench has been thrown into the works.

Plus:

• C.H. Robinson Rates Forecast
• Hormuz Snooze
• LEGO Load Nearly Lost

🍳 What's Cookin' In Freight

📈 C.H. Robinson Forecast Rising Rates. C.H. Robinson's Director of Market Intelligence, Ryan Hammett, tagged us directly to share their April forecast update: dry van costs are now projected to rise 17% year-over-year, with reefer up 16% y/y. The chart tells the story — rates bottomed out through most of 2025, surged sharply in early 2026, and the C.H. Robinson forecast shows no reversal through end of year.

🛢️ Hormuz Confusion. A U.S.-Iran ceasefire was announced Tuesday, but shipping hasn't recovered. Only a handful of vessels have transited the strait since the truce — 5 on Wednesday, 7 on Thursday — against a normal flow of hundreds per day. More than 600 vessels, including 325 tankers, remain stranded in the Gulf. Analysts expect safe transit capacity to max out at 10–15 passages a day even if the ceasefire holds. Oil prices dropped toward $95/barrel on the ceasefire news, but don't count on pump relief until those tankers actually start moving.

🧱 $1M In LEGOs & $470K in Stolen Vehicles in the Same Week. Two cargo theft stories that should be on your radar. In California, three people were arrested after stealing approximately $1 million worth of LEGO products from trailers in transit from Fort Worth to Moreno Valley; deputies caught two box trucks fleeing the scene and found the stolen loads inside. Separately in Texas, authorities intercepted two semis carrying $470K in stolen vehicles believed to be headed to Honduras. The real story is that those vehicles moved through what looked like legitimate freight channels before anyone flagged them. Both cases in the same week, same corridor. Vet your carriers.

Presented By Trinity Logistics

Transparency builds trust. Trinity Logistics provides clear reporting tools, consistent pay schedules, and no surprises, so Freight Agents always know where they stand. 

The Transformer Bottleneck

The AI money is real. The flatbed opportunity is real. The timeline just got a lot messier.

$185 billion in new U.S. data center projects were announced for 2026. Tech giants are on track to collectively spend close to $700B on AI infrastructure this year alone.

FreightCaviar is in the South this week, and we're told the scale of what's going up is genuinely hard to process if you haven't seen it up close. Massive flatbed loads. Structural steel. Generator equipment. Mile after mile of new construction corridor.

But here's what the freight industry needs to understand right now: nearly half of planned U.S. data centers slated to open in 2026 are expected to be delayed or outright canceled. Not due to demand. Not due to funding.

Because you can’t get a transformer.

The Actual Problem

Electrical components make up <10% of total project cost, but they’re the one piece you can’t skip.

And they’re stuck.

• Transformer lead times: 2 years → up to 5 years
• U.S. manufacturing: not keeping up
• Imports: Canada, Mexico, South Korea, China
• Result: longer transit, tariff exposure, complex assembly chains

Of the 12 gigawatts worth of data centers supposed to come online in the U.S. this year, only about a third are actually under construction.

Translation: a lot of “planned” capacity isn’t moving yet.

What the Industry is Saying

Craig Fuller said it plainly: ."...energy + data centers is going to power the trucking super cycle."

Polymarket currently puts a 35% chance on a data center moratorium passing this year, a risk that wasn't on most brokers' radar two weeks ago.

Drivers already running these lanes are seeing it up close:

• One driver: passing a new site every week — “largest construction site I’ve ever seen.”
• A flatbed operator: data centers have been his entire book for 8 months

Then the reality check:

“Didn’t half of them just get delayed or canceled?”

That’s the tension right now:

On-the-ground momentum vs. looming delays.

What it Means for Flatbed

The short version: the boom isn't dead, but the timeline is stretched out.

Flatbed demand is already ticking up:

• ATA For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index → 3-year high (Feb 2026)
• Flatbed load posts → up MoM

Drivers behind it:

• Data centers
• Solar builds
• Industrial reshoring

But delays change the shape of demand.

A load expected in March might move in August...or next year.

For Brokers & Carriers

• Watch the real activity, not headlines. Announcements don't mean freight, steel moving means freight.
• Focus lanes: Southeast + Texas lead, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Ohio are also active zones.
• Qualify the load. Ask shippers whether electrical infrastructure is on-site before committing capacity to a corridor.
• Stay flexible. Flatbed is tightening into spring regardless. Delays mean shifted spikes, not canceled demand.

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• Real Capacity: Built on millions of invoice-backed loads from continuously vetted carriers, not self-reported or scraped data.
• Real Rates: View legitimate rates based on what carriers are actually accepting, helping you quote faster and protect margin.
• The Most Secure Network: Every carrier in the OTR Network is vetted on entry and monitored 24/7/365.

OTR Select is a capacity and rate intelligence platform available to a select group of brokers.

 🌎 Around the Freight Web

🔥 Warehouse Arson Aftermath. An NFI Industries contractor allegedly filmed himself torching a 1.2-million-sq-ft Kimberly-Clark distribution center in Ontario, CA — then posted it. His quote "should've paid us enough to live" went viral. The building didn't survive.

🚂 Norfolk Southern Wins. The STB formally granted NS control of the Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line serving the Port of Virginia — a dispute that's been dragging since 2019. CSX lost.

🤖 project44 Goes Shopping. At its Decision44 event, the visibility giant launched a full AI agent portfolio, then immediately acquired AI-native logistics execution company LunaPath.ai in an all-cash deal.

🛤️ Dead Line Breathes. Palmetto Railways is reactivating its 40-mile South Carolina Salkehatchie Subdivision, dormant since a coal plant closed in 2012. First railcar moves expected this month.

🚛 DMV Goes Sideways. 13 arrested, dozens fled, with some abandoning semis on the street, after ICE responded to an unusual crowd of non-domiciled CDL holders at a Pennsylvania licensing center. PennDOT remains under a federal pause on new non-domiciled CDL issuance.

🇲🇽 Strike Called Off. ANTAC suspended highway blockades across 20 Mexican states after police clashes made it too dangerous to continue. The demands: cargo crime, diesel costs, extortion, went unresolved. This one isn't done.

💰 Kickback Scheme Sentenced. Two trucking company owners and two USPS employees got a combined 99 months in federal prison after paying $1.5M in kickbacks to secure $15M in postal contracts. The math didn't work out.

🎣 The FreightCaviar Corner

Issue 002 of FreightCaviar Print is almost here.

80 pages on the history of Freight Alley.

Print magazine + Caviar Circle access.

From $17/month.

30-day money-back guarantee. If it's not for you, we'll refund you right away, and you still keep both Winter and Spring editions.

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Freight Humor