Railroad and trucking operators are hauling more oversize cargo, helping to keep U.S. manufacturing activity on track for growth.

Carrying “large, bulky items” via rail — including oil-production and exploration equipment, turbines and airplane fuselages — has become a “very interesting” segment of the transportation industry, said Walter Kemmsies, chief economist for Moffatt & Nichol Inc., a Long Beach, California-based infrastructure-advisory company. That’s because the U.S. has a competitive advantage making these types of products, and production is rising, he said.

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