The freight-train ride from Chicago to Colesburg, Tenn., usually takes a few days. Earlier this month, though, the ride was 18 days, 13 hours and 57 minutes, logs show.

Africa's past is the mildewed train station in central Addis Ababa, where locomotives sit gutted and rusted tracks vanish in the grass. The line was once the greatest in Africa; built by France in the 1910s, it ran more than 450 miles northeast to neighboring Djibouti, where the desert meets the sea.

Hyperloop One completed the second phase of testing its ultrafast transportation system - propelling an aerodynamic pod down a low-pressure tube at record speed and distance, the company announced last week.

Cargo theft in the Americas and terrorist activity in Europe were the main risk factors facing global supply chains in 2016, according to a major annual study.