OpenTug, Seattle, Wash., and Telegraph, Chicago, announced a partnership aimed at improving visibility between barge and rail freight operations across North America.
The companies said the collaboration combines OpenTug’s barge voyage management platform with Telegraph’s rail intelligence software to provide terminal operators, traders, and logistics teams with a single view of inbound freight moving by both rail and barge.
The integration is designed for terminals handling bulk commodities including grain, fertilizer, steel, coal, and petroleum products, where railcars and barges often converge at the same facilities. According to the companies, those operations are typically managed in separate systems, creating challenges around berth scheduling, storage capacity, rail congestion, arrival timing, and inventory management.
Under the partnership, users will be able to track real-time barge positioning alongside predictive rail arrival estimates in a unified operational dashboard. The companies said the combined data is intended to help operators better anticipate scheduling conflicts, coordinate labor and equipment, and reduce idle time for both railcars and barges.
Telegraph said the platform pairing is intended to improve coordination at inland river, import, and export terminals where rail and marine freight networks intersect. OpenTug said the partnership also supports efforts to make barge transportation more operationally predictable for shippers and terminal operators.
The companies said the system is expected to help reduce demurrage exposure across both transportation modes while improving planning and operational decision-making at terminals.
