How Consumer Brands Move by Rail: Tariffs, Freight Data + the 2027 Cost Outlook

Talk Track by Telegraph · Nov 4, 2026 · 29m · transcript

Peanuts, barley, + a good deal of the brands in your pantry: plenty of what’s on your shelves rode a train to get there. In this episode of Talk Track, David sits down with Tom Madrecki, Senior Vice President for Public Affairs at the Consumer Brands Association, to unpack how America’s largest domestic manufacturing sector moves its goods + where policy either helps or hinders.

The conversation covers how the CPG industry weathered a year of tariffs, lessons from the COVID era, the case for a national freight data portal, + what shippers are watching in the UP–NS merger. Tom also makes a…