From it's mid-summer record peak, the Baltic Dry Index, a benchmark index of shipping rates for 26 dry bulk routes calculated by the London-based Baltic Exchange, has fallen by more than 90 percent, a crash of epic proportions.

Yet the carnage in the transportation industry has not been limited to international operations. Both within and beyond our shores, a fast-spreading economic downturn is having a deleterious impact on firms that transport goods in all sorts of ways, over long and short distances.

In "Freight Haulers Slam on the Brakes," The Wall Street Journal reports on the carnage unfolding in a key U.S. industry.

Expecting the Weakest Year in Three Decades, Truck, Rail and Ocean Shipping Firms Are Cutting Back

In a normal year, Gordon Trucking Inc. might replace 20% of its fleet of 1,500 big rigs with new trucks. But given the bleak outlook for the freight business, the Pacific, Wash., hauler doesn't intend to buy a single new truck next year.

"We're settling in for nuclear winter in the first half of 2009," says Steve Gordon, operating chief for the company, which hauls everything from paper products to electronics.

He's not alone. Some industry executives and analysts predict that 2009 could be the worst year for freight-transportation volume in three decades or more. As a result, companies in industries ranging from trucking to railroads to ocean shipping are scaling back sharply.

Ocean freighters are docking vessels and putting off delivery of new ships. Rail-car production is expected to plummet as railroads put box cars in storage rather than buy new ones. And U.S. trucking companies are projected to buy just 101,000 tractor trailers next year, down an estimated 22% from this year and 64% from two years ago, according to freight-transportation forecaster FTR Associates.

Next year "is going to be the worst year for transportation demand in 30 years," FTR economist Noel Perry said in an industry conference call last month.

The drop comes as weak consumer spending has prompted retailers and other businesses to delay or reduce orders. As the carriers have responded, their retrenchment already has reverberated across various industries that heavily rely on haulers to transport supplies and raw materials, including U.S. auto makers and home builders teetering on the brink of collapse.

Business is so bad that FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. canceled their annual predictions of how many packages they would handle in the peak shipping days before Christmas.