Most ports need a truck to haul every container from the terminal to a rail yard before intermodal service even starts. PortMiami skips that step. Florida East Coast Railway runs an on-dock intermodal yard inside the terminal itself, so a container bound for rail can roll straight from the vessel onto a railcar without a drayage truck touching it at all. That single fact splits every South Florida container move into two genuinely different paths.
What On-Dock Rail Actually Changes
Jacksonville, Savannah, and most East Coast ports move rail-bound containers the same way they move everything else at first: a drayage truck pulls the box off the terminal and hauls it to a separate rail ramp, sometimes miles away. The truck move happens either way. Rail just takes over after.
PortMiami doesn't work that way for every container, because FEC built its intermodal yard inside the port footprint. A box consigned to rail can transfer directly from ship to railcar on FEC's own tracks. No gate pass, no chassis, no drayage invoice for that leg. The container simply never becomes a trucking job until it reaches wherever FEC's rail network ends and local delivery starts.
That's the real line between the two categories this article covers. Pure truck drayage means a truck handles the entire move, port to door. Intermodal drayage means a truck only handles one end of it, because rail (on-dock or otherwise) covers the middle distance.
Pure Truck Drayage, Defined
Pure truck drayage is what most Miami importers already picture: a chassis, a container, and a driver running from PortMiami or Port Everglades straight to a warehouse in Doral, Medley, or Hialeah Gardens. One company, one bill of lading, one delivery receipt. The box never gets interchanged to a second carrier type.
This is the default for anything consumed or distributed locally, and it's the move most warehouse appointment systems assume when they ask for a delivery window.
Intermodal Drayage, Defined
Intermodal drayage covers any container where rail handles part of the distance. In South Florida that splits into two different setups, and the difference matters:
Either way, the container crosses from ocean carrier custody to rail carrier custody at some point, and that handoff is what defines "intermodal" instead of just calling it drayage.
Who Touches the Box, and When
On a pure truck move, One A Trucks is the only carrier in the chain. We pick up at the terminal, we deliver at the warehouse, and the interchange agreement runs between us and the terminal operator directly.
On an intermodal move through FEC's on-dock yard, the ocean carrier hands the container to FEC inside the port. FEC runs it north, then hands it to whichever drayage company covers the destination market, Jacksonville, Charlotte, wherever the rail line ends. A South Florida trucking company's involvement might be zero on that leg, or it might show up again on the return trip if the box comes back to Miami empty.
Off-dock intermodal flips the order. A Miami drayage company moves the box first, from the terminal to FEC's Hialeah ramp or a similar yard, before rail ever gets involved. That first truck leg looks identical to a pure truck move on paper, right up until the destination changes from "warehouse" to "rail yard."
The Paperwork Looks Different Too
A pure truck move runs on a standard bill of lading and a terminal interchange receipt. One document trail, one carrier's name on everything.
Intermodal moves add a rail waybill and, depending on the ramp, a separate interchange agreement between the trucking company and the rail carrier rather than the terminal operator. Importers who only deal with pure truck drayage sometimes get confused the first time a shipment routes through rail, because a second carrier's paperwork shows up mid-chain with none of the terminal references they're used to seeing.
- Pure truck: terminal interchange + standard delivery receipt
- Intermodal: rail waybill + a second interchange agreement at the rail-to-truck handoff point
- On-dock intermodal: no terminal drayage interchange at all for the port-side leg
Which One Your Shipment Actually Gets
The steamship line's routing instructions decide this, not the importer and not the drayage company. A bill of lading marked for local Miami delivery gets pure truck drayage by default. A bill of lading with a destination code north of Jacksonville or inland from either coast often routes to rail automatically, especially on larger volume lanes where the carrier has a standing intermodal agreement.
Reefer cargo almost never goes intermodal. Temperature-controlled containers need continuous power and monitoring that most rail networks aren't set up to guarantee door to door, so perishables stay on pure truck drayage even on longer hauls where rail would otherwise save money.
Why This Matters Before You Book
Know which category your container falls into before you set a delivery expectation. A pure truck move from PortMiami to a Doral warehouse can happen the same day the container clears customs. An intermodal move, even through on-dock rail, adds the rail transit window on top of everything else, typically 5-7 business days depending on destination.
Ask your freight forwarder or customs broker which routing applies before you promise a delivery date to your own customer. The drayage company handling the truck leg can tell you exactly when their part starts, but they can't speed up a rail schedule they don't control.
Not sure which category your shipment falls into, or need the local leg handled either way? Get a quote from One A Trucks. We run pure truck drayage across South Florida and the local delivery leg for containers arriving by rail.