Estes Express Lines deploys $56 million to expand cross-border and offshore freight network

Estes Express Lines is deploying nearly $56 million to expand its cross-border and offshore freight network, focusing on terminals, equipment and capacity serving Canada, Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The privately held, family-owned carrier, which is celebrating its 95th anniversary this year, is North America’s largest privately held less-than-truckload (LTL) freight transportation provider.

Alex Peebles, senior director of offshore and international at Estes, stated that the company is taking a longer view of the freight market rather than allowing current conditions to dictate its investment strategy. “We’re really looking at all of these investments from a long-term horizon and viewpoint perspective and one that’s going to help accommodate growth and capacity into all the offshore international markets that we service,” Peebles told FreightWaves.

A significant portion of the investment includes a larger facility in Laredo, Texas, which Estes purchased from another carrier and is now retrofitting. The facility will roughly double the company’s Laredo door count from about 40 to approximately 85 or 86 doors, including warehouse space and a significantly larger yard. Estes is also targeting the end of 2026 to implement new routings through the Otay Mesa, California, and El Paso-Juarez border crossings to reduce mileage and improve network efficiency.

North of the border, the carrier has expanded capacity at three gateways serving Canada. The relocated Buffalo, New York, service center, which opened in June, features 171 doors, quadrupling the previous capacity in that location. The Detroit terminal has nearly doubled to 139 doors from about 70, and capacity at the Fargo, North Dakota, location has also doubled.

Despite an increasingly uncertain trade environment, cross-border tonnage to Canada is growing faster than shipment counts, with the average shipment weight increasing by 5% to 6% year over year. Peebles noted that some manufacturers are purchasing smaller quantities of cross-border goods, shifting shipments that previously moved as full truckloads into the LTL market.

Estes currently operates 13,857 terminal doors across roughly 300 locations and expects to surpass 14,000 doors by the end of October. The company is the only pure-play U.S. LTL carrier operating its own ocean container fleet serving Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, having expanded the fleet into Puerto Rico over the past year and opened a 29-door service center on Oahu in 2025.