In 1966, Canadian Pacific Railway had an issue. Empty boxcars have been piling up in Jap Canada with no payload for the return journey west. The answer was a small freight firm referred to as Fastfrate, created particularly to fill these automobiles with less-than-truckload shipments sure for Western Canada.
Six many years later, that single-service operation has grow to be one in all North America’s largest privately held provide chain suppliers as a bunch of seven corporations spanning intermodal, truckload, drayage, warehousing, e-commerce success, final-mile supply, worldwide freight forwarding, and customs brokerage, working throughout greater than 46 places in Canada, the USA, and Mexico.
The transformation was orchestrated over a interval of many years by Ron Tepper, the chief chairman who first acquired Fastfrate in 1994 and has guided each main inflection level since, together with promoting to personal fairness, shopping for the corporate again, and assembling an acquisition portfolio that has reshaped what the corporate can provide shippers throughout the continent.
“We’ve been a well-liked son of CP Rail because the starting,” Tepper stated in an interview with BigRig. “Our services started as a boxcar operation which supplied one-way strikes and no stability necessities.”
The intermodal pivot
The primary main turning level got here within the late Nineteen Nineties. As railways anticipated surging demand from China’s manufacturing increase, CP Rail’s management instructed Fastfrate it was time to maneuver away from boxcars solely.
“In 1998, railways foresaw big demand from China,” Tepper stated. “Senior execs who labored intently with China foresaw the results the Chinese language market would have on transport, each east to west and west to east. It wasn’t a query. We have been instructed to maneuver away from the boxcars, to make ourselves an intermodal operation.”
The mandate carried danger. Fastfrate wanted to construct crossdock services throughout the nation (Halifax, Winnipeg, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Vancouver) and purchase a facility in Montreal. On the time, the corporate wasn’t positive it might soak up the funding. However Tepper made the guess, and it paid off in two methods: Fastfrate turned the primary main Canadian LTL service to transform totally to intermodal, capturing important market share earlier than rivals adopted go well with, and the true property portfolio it constructed adjoining to CP Rail yards has appreciated dramatically as Canadian city land values have climbed.
“We have been the primary main participant within the LTL house to transform to intermodal from boxcar,” Tepper stated. “Inside two years, each different main Canadian service transformed, however we gained a superb market share and grew organically.”
That intermodal conversion additionally created a brand new enterprise line. As Fastfrate moved from boxcars to containers, it wanted vans to haul these containers between rail yards and clients, so it constructed Canada Drayage Inc. (CDI) in 1999.
“Immediately, we’re the one drayage supplier that covers from Halifax to Vancouver,” Tepper stated. “Now we have over 600 vans doing OTR transport to satisfy the wants of our shippers from finish to finish. We didn’t purchase that enterprise, we constructed it, and we’re pleased with that.”
The buyback and the build-out
Tepper offered 75% of Fastfrate to Fenway Equities in 2007. He retained 1 / 4 of the corporate via a troublesome stretch from 2009 to 2017, then purchased again full possession. Since regaining management, he has executed a collection of acquisitions that systematically stuffed gaps in Fastfrate’s service portfolio, each including a brand new layer to what has grow to be a completely built-in provide chain community.
In 2021, Fastfrate acquired ASL Distribution Companies and Precision Parcel & Package deal Deliveries. ASL, a 66-year-old firm with greater than 500,000 sq. ft of warehouse house, introduced built-in warehousing, e-commerce success, and distribution functionality. Precision added final-mile courier providers for each B2B and B2C deliveries, dealing with all the pieces from small parcels to outsized freight.
In 2022, Fastfrate acquired a majority stake in Challenger Motor Freight, one in all Canada’s largest cross-border trucking corporations, working greater than 1,200 vans and three,500 trailers with 500 to 700 border crossings every day. The deal gave Fastfrate full truckload capability and a serious U.S. footprint for the primary time.
And in early 2026, Fastfrate closed on Omnitrans Inc., a Montreal-based worldwide freight forwarder and licensed customs dealer with greater than 230 established commerce lanes and a direct working presence in China. That acquisition prolonged Fastfrate’s attain all the way in which again to the purpose of origin, finishing the end-to-end imaginative and prescient.
“We added corporations and left them intact in order that we might proceed including new providers to our firm,” Tepper stated. “Each buy has been so as to add to our providers and synergize to grow to be a full end-to-end supplier.”
The CPKC spine
Threading via all the 60-year story is Fastfrate’s partnership with what’s now Canadian Pacific Kansas Metropolis, the one single-line rail community connecting Canada, the USA, and Mexico. CPKC’s merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas Metropolis Southern created a transcontinental rail hall, and Fastfrate, because the railway’s largest and longest-standing carrier-customer, is uniquely positioned to leverage it.
Fastfrate co-locates with CPKC at intermodal terminals throughout the continent. In Toronto and Montreal, the 2 corporations have collectively invested in non-public gate expertise (what CPKC calls the “FastPass”) that provides Fastfrate’s drayage vans devoted entry to rail services, bypassing the congestion that may value different carriers hours per flip. Fastfrate has additionally devoted 15 acres of property adjoining to CPKC’s Toronto intermodal facility for a container yard and pre-pull operation.
“Our relationship with CP Rail has been longstanding, and we’ve been shut companions since day one,” Tepper stated. “I’ve been round for the tenure of 4 completely different CP Rail CEOs, and we’ve at all times maintained a real strategic partnership. We’ve grown our companies collectively.”
That partnership now extends into Mexico, the place Fastfrate has deployed containers on CPKC’s Mexico Midwest Specific service and established operations in Monterrey and Mexico Metropolis. Challenger’s automotive freight experience in serving main clients within the automotive trade aligns immediately with the northbound and southbound elements flows that dominate the Mexico hall.
Income diversification and the street forward
The cumulative impact of Fastfrate’s acquisition technique is seen in its income composition. In fiscal 2020, LTL accounted for practically 67% of the corporate’s income, with logistics at 11%, drayage at 21%, and warehousing at lower than 1%. By its pro-forma 2026 projections, that blend has shifted dramatically: LTL and truckload every symbolize roughly 22%, logistics accounts for 23%, remaining mile for practically 11%, drayage for about 11%, and the newly added freight forwarding and customs brokerage segments contribute a mixed 8%.
“We have been initially depending on LTL, however we’ve frequently expanded by including logistics organizations, warehousing, drayage, and remaining mile,” Tepper stated. “We’re not depending on one service. That stability offers us extra stability all year long and when numerous exterior components have an effect on the market, like worldwide tariffs, climate occasions, seasonal fluctuations, and so forth.”
Wanting forward, Tepper signaled that the corporate isn’t completed constructing. Progress into the U.S. and Mexico will proceed, notably as nearshoring tendencies speed up cross-border commerce flows. And the corporate is investing in expertise corresponding to automated robotic sorting facilities, AI-driven empty-mile optimization, and workflow automation to scale operations quicker.
Automation and AI funding
At Precision Parcel & Package deal Deliveries, Fastfrate’s final-mile division, the corporate is deploying a T-Type robotic sortation system powered by a fleet of 160 autonomous guided robots. The set up spans a 220-by-85-foot footprint with 312 sorting locations throughout 9 sortation fingers, able to processing as much as 7,500 parcels per hour. The AGVs navigate by way of floor-mounted markers, mechanically transport parcels from induction stations to vacation spot chutes, and return themselves to self-charging docks, all with out handbook intervention. Automated print-and-apply labeling and a centralized HMI management station spherical out the system.
This infrastructure funding displays the place Fastfrate sees the final-mile enterprise heading; as in, greater volumes, quicker throughput, and permitting the corporate to extend capability for {the marketplace} as e-commerce success demand continues to accentuate throughout North America.
The automation push extends properly past the warehouse ground. Throughout the broader Fastfrate Group, the corporate is rolling out a set of AI-powered instruments designed to streamline operations at each buyer touchpoint. An AI system now organizes inbound IT helpdesk tickets, routing and prioritizing service requests with out handbook triage. One other handles dwell telephone inquiries, offering automated cargo monitoring to callers. A 3rd device contacts drivers immediately to gather real-time standing updates (together with place, proximity to vacation spot, and border crossing confirmations) and feeds that info again into Fastfrate’s operational programs mechanically.
On the customer-facing aspect, AI is being deployed to deal with e-mail responses for spot quote requests and monitoring inquiries.
“We’re additionally investing in upgraded services and all the most recent tech,” Tepper stated. “With instruments like that, we are going to proceed to scale operations quicker and quicker.”
Whereas Fastfrate began 60 years in the past by filling empty boxcars, the subsequent chapter of development might be powered as a lot by software program as by metal.
However via all of the growth, Tepper returned to the individuals who made it potential.
“We wish our legacy to be one in all development, risk-taking, and taking good care of our workers first always,” Tepper stated. “Now we have extremely low turnover, and a variety of 30- and 40-year workers. They’re handled properly, and we all know that the enterprise has grown on the energy of our workers. You want the fitting folks on the proper place to make all of it work, and that’s one factor we’ll at all times be pleased with.”
In the event you’re a U.S. shipper and also you’re unfamiliar with the identify Fastfrate, Tepper’s message was easy.
“We’re coming,” he stated. “We’re going to proceed rising in Mexico and the U.S. like we have now in Canada.”
Click on right here to study extra about Fastfrate.
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