The East Coast's CSX Transportation was teamed up with Union Pacific, a dominant rail carrier in the western U.S., to jointly market a domestic intermodal service in jumbo-sized containers.

Called UMAX, the service will give customers single-bill interline routing on more than 600 traffic lanes, and the railroads are backing it up with 20,000 of the big 53-foot boxes.

The carriers said UMAX will launch on March 29, with door-to-door service that will be competitive with trucks by combining short-haul trucking with long-distance rail.

“In a word, UMAX offers customers more,” said James Hertwig, president of CSX Intermodal.

“We will jointly offer more containers and more lanes to more customers with more competitive schedules than ever.”

John Kaiser, UP vice president and general manager for intermodal, said the service “will offer extensive market access and expanded capacity across a nationwide intermodal network.”

This is the latest in a series of high-profile intermodal moves among the railroads, as carriers vie to boost their service times, partner with each other or intermodal shipment consolidators and try to build market share, reports the Journal of Commerce.