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Brielle Jaekel

Brielle is the deputy editor of Freight Waves and has a more-than-10-year history in B2B publishing, tackling cutting edge stories in business, with four years specifically focused on freight. She’s interviewed numerous CEOs and is adept at finding stories that matter to the industry. She believes in finding a new way forward in the supply chain to solve problems, drive sustainability and put people first. If you’d like to get in touch with Brielle, please email her at [email protected].
Feb - 2024 -
07 February
Brielle Jaekel

Bestpass, Geotab collaborate on toll-telematic integration

Bestpass and Geotab are collaborating to provide mutual customers greater insights into toll violations and costs.

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02 February
Brielle Jaekel

Many Black Americans helped pave the way in transportation

As Black History Month comes to a close, FreightWaves celebrates some of the most important African American figures in the transportation industry.

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Jan - 2024 -
29 January
Brielle Jaekel

Norfolk Southern fulfills promise to join federal safety program C3RS

Saturday will mark one year since a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. NS is joining the federal Confidential Close Call Reporting System, the only Class I railroad to do so.

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19 January
Brielle Jaekel

The sad but important story of Lincoln’s train funeral procession

After President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, his body toured the United States in a funeral procession by train as the country mourned the loss.

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11 January
Brielle Jaekel

How Australia lost a war with emus

After World War I, veterans took up farming and provided food supplies and wheat to Western Australia. But when emus began to threaten that supply chain, another war broke out. The emus won.

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Dec - 2023 -
29 December
Brielle Jaekel

The best cover designs from American Shipper’s 1990s magazine issues

American Shipper magazine has an extensive history of monthly printed issues. We’ve compiled a gallery of our favorite covers from the 1990s.

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14 December
Brielle Jaekel

The logistics of the Boston Tea Party

Find out how more than 100 patriots pulled off dumping so much tea into Boston Harbor in this week’s episode of Tracks Through Time.

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13 December
Brielle Jaekel

Top 10 FreightWaves Classics of 2023

FreightWaves Classics aims to highlight the most interesting and sometimes unique stories throughout the history of transportation and freight. This year we found so many compelling stories; here are some of the most read from 2023.

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08 December
Brielle Jaekel

Top 10 Tracks Through Time episodes of 2023

Tracks Through Time spent all year sharing some of the most captivating stories in the history of logistics. See the favorites from the year here.

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06 December
Brielle Jaekel

The launch of the shipping container

The shipper container was one of the biggest game changers for the ocean freight industry, and its origins come from a true inventor.

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01 December
Brielle Jaekel

Find out how Rockefeller Christmas tree is transported year after year

Choosing the perfect holiday tree for Rockefeller Plaza isn’t easy, but it’s a lot easier than getting it there.

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Nov - 2023 -
22 November
Brielle Jaekel

Early 20th century mail delivery took unusual forms

The U.S. Postal Service has been in action for centuries. Throughout the years, it has adopted all kinds of methods of transportation to deliver the mail.

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17 November
Brielle Jaekel

How Benjamin Franklin changed the Postal Service

Benjamin Franklin became the first postmaster general in 1775 and changed the United States Postal Service forever.

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16 November
Brielle Jaekel

How Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade logistics has worked for almost 100 years

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has gotten bigger and bigger every year since 1924, but how can such a big logistics program be pulled off year after year? Brielle Jaekel and Mary O’Connell dive into how it has worked throughout the years.

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10 November
Brielle Jaekel

Photo collection depicts logistics operations during wartime

Some of the most important jobs in the military are handling logistics, as shown in photographs compiled in honor of Veterans Day.

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02 November
Brielle Jaekel

The dangerous job of delivering mail by air in the early 20th century

Mail delivery by airplane started in 1918, if you can believe it. It was dangerous work but cut down delivery time by a day.

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01 November
Brielle Jaekel

A gallery of early mail delivery by air

Take a look at some of the daring and interesting ways mail was delivered by air in the early 20th century.

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Oct - 2023 -
27 October
Brielle Jaekel

The best cover designs from American Shipper’s 1980s magazine issues

American Shipper magazine has an extensive history of monthly printed issues, each with interesting cover designs. We’ve compiled a gallery of our favorite covers from the 1980s.

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26 October
Brielle Jaekel

Mysterious fog caused one of Tennessee’s deadliest crashes 33 years ago

Twelve people died and 42 were injured in 1990 after a sudden fog enveloped a section of Interstate 75 in Tennessee.

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20 October
Brielle Jaekel

The most haunted US highways

Deputy Editor Brielle Jaekel and 3PL expert Mary O’Connell tell stories of haunted highways to celebrate Halloween on the latest episode of Tracks Through Time.

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12 October
Brielle Jaekel

How Australia lost a war with emus

After World War I, veterans took up farming and provided food supplies and wheat to Western Australia. But when emus began to threaten that supply chain, another war broke out. The emus won.

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06 October
Brielle Jaekel

Did you know in the early 1900s, mail was delivered by motorcycle?

Motorcycles had a two-decade run at the U.S. Postal Service, but that helped push the industry into new ways of mail delivery.

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05 October
Brielle Jaekel

A truck driver’s vanishing act: What happened to Devin Williams?

In this chilling episode of Tracks Through Time, we delve into the never-solved 1995 disappearance of truck driver Devin Williams, who vanished without a trace in the heart of Arizona’s Tonto National Forest.

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Sep - 2023 -
29 September
Brielle Jaekel

The best cover designs from American Shipper’s 1970s magazine issues

American Shipper magazine has an extensive history of monthly printed issues, each with interesting cover designs. We’ve compiled a gallery of our favorite covers from the 1970s.

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22 September
Brielle Jaekel

30,000 pounds of spilled bananas immortalized in song and story

In 1965 a truck driver sacrificed himself to save others as his brakes failed on a steep hill while he was transporting bananas. The compelling story became the subject of a folk song by Harry Chapin almost 10 years later.

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21 September
Brielle Jaekel

Lessons from the 1947 Texas City port disaster

: In 1947, tragedy struck the port in Texas City, Texas, where a French ship carrying highly flammable fertilizer caught fire and caused devastation to the port town. But the lessons learned from the disaster likely saved lives in the years following, according to the latest episode of Tracks Through Time.

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15 September
Brielle Jaekel

A government challenge spawned transcontinental mail service

Transcontinental mail in the United States began on Sept. 15, 1858, when the Overland Mail Service began after it won a contract to connect St. Louis to the Pacific Coast by mail within 25 days.

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14 September
Brielle Jaekel

OOIDA’s scrappy start

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association started out of necessity. Read more about the story of its beginning.

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07 September
Brielle Jaekel

Disappearance of Flight 19 remains a mystery

In December 1945, five U.S. Navy Avenger bombers took off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a routine training mission known as Flight 19. They were to navigate to various points in the Atlantic Ocean and return to base. But as Tracks Through Time explores, the seemingly mundane exercise turned into one of the most baffling mysteries in aviation history.

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04 September
Brielle Jaekel

Marginalized workers of the 19th century are to thank for Labor Day

While there is debate over the actual founder of Labor Day, it cannot be denied that its history laid the groundwork for the better conditions for laborers today, even if we still have some room to grow.

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Aug - 2023 -
24 August
Brielle Jaekel

Top 5 FreightWaves history articles from 1st half of 2023

FreightWaves covers some of the most interesting stories of the history of transportation and freight.

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Brielle Jaekel

New tech aims to address US truck parking shortage

A new app from Finloc 2000 allows carriers, drivers and, soon, freight brokers to book overnight truck parking, addressing an issue that plagues the U.S. trucking industry.

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18 August
Brielle Jaekel

Spam joins recovery efforts in Maui

Spam is making donations to those in need after the fires in Maui, Hawaii, building on its more than 75-year close relationship with the state.

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17 August
Brielle Jaekel

The tragic train accident that created an American folk hero

The legend of Casey Jones remains alive today in music and pop culture. But the real story is about a serious crash and an act of heroism.

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16 August
Brielle Jaekel

The deadliest bridge collapse in modern history

A fatal flaw in West Virginia’s Silver Bridge caused the death of 46 people. Fifty-five years later, many lives have been saved thanks to greater safety procedures put in place following the tragedy.

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10 August
Brielle Jaekel

The supply chain of bathtub gin and bootlegging

This episode of Tracks Through Time takes a look at how a loophole kept a supply chain of ingredients for bootleg and bathtub gin legal during the Prohibition era.

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Jul - 2023 -
27 July
Brielle Jaekel

The 1956 Suez Canal Crisis: A pivotal moment in shipping history

This episode of Tracks Through Time focuses on the crisis over the Suez Canal that put Egypt at odds with France, Britain and Israel. The story has surprising twists and unexpected secret motives. Find out how this shaped the future of shipping routes and globalization.

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21 July
Brielle Jaekel

What was the 1st trade route?

One route during the Han Dynasty connected Europe and Asia and was the start of trade and supply chains as we know them today.

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14 July
Brielle Jaekel

New York’s mail once carried by underground tubes

Did you know there was a system of tubes under New York City that used to carry the mail?

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13 July
Brielle Jaekel

How 1 girl stopped a railroad disaster and saved 200 lives

This episode of Tracks Through Time explores how Kate Shelley became a hero at 17 years old when she took extreme measures to save a passenger train from certain disaster in 1881.

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Jun - 2023 -
30 June
Brielle Jaekel

Where did the ZIP code come from?

ZIP codes are a big reason our postal system works today, but it took years and a cartoon for the system to actually be adopted. Where did the coding system come from and why was it introduced?

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29 June
Brielle Jaekel

What happened to the Mary Celeste crew?

In 1872 the British brigantine Mary Celeste was discovered adrift in the Atlantic Ocean without any damage but missing its crew. Author Valerie Martin discusses some of the theories behind what happened and her research into “The Ghost of the Mary Celeste,” a nonfiction book about the case, on this episode of Tracks Through Time.

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21 June
Brielle Jaekel

PalletTrader reaches 1 million transactions milestone, expands service

PalletTrader is an online marketplace specifically designed for buying and selling pallets and pallets only. Since its launch in October, it has reached 1 million transactions and is rolling out an expanded service. But why is PalletTrader growing so fast and why do we need a marketplace just for pallets?

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15 June
Brielle Jaekel

Tragic crash of US Navy airship

In 1933, 75 U.S. Navy members died when the airship USS Akron crashed and sank into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New Jersey. Naval History and Heritage Command’s Caroline Johnson tells the story.

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06 June
Brielle Jaekel

‘The dark of the moon on the 6th of June’

For truckers and 1970s country, the C.W. McCall hit “Convoy” shares a fun look into CB radio terminology.

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01 June
Brielle Jaekel

Infamous train robbery solved after a shocking mistake

An ambitious train robbery goes off virtually without a hitch. But one little mistake leads to the downfall of this daring gang.

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May - 2023 -
31 May
Brielle Jaekel

A look back on the 1st transcontinental railroad

The Pacific Railway Act of 1862 brought about the first transcontinental railroad. Check out the photographs and illustrations that depict what it was like to work on the railroad at the time.

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26 May
Brielle Jaekel

‘The most difficult and dangerous transportation job ever undertaken’

Merchant mariners during WWII were an integral part of war efforts, despite being lesser known. They saw the most casualties and were responsible for transporting all of the supplies throughout the war, a crucial part of the Allies’ success.

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18 May
Brielle Jaekel

Battalion 6 Triple 8 – An untold story from WWII

Black women in the U.S. Army during WWII made up the 6888 battalion, whose sole job was to handle the mail for American soldiers. Their story has been largely ignored for decades – until now. Hear their story and learn about their impossible feats from a historian close to the project.

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12 May
Brielle Jaekel

History captured in Wright Brothers’ photographs

The Wright Brothers are two of the most influential people in history, changing not only transportation but the entire world with their flying machine. Take a look at some of the glass plate negatives of photographs of their work and personal lives taken between 1898 and 1911.

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11 May
Brielle Jaekel

Was Gordon Lightfoot’s song about the Edmund Fitzgerald accurate?

In light of Gordon Lightfoot’s passing, FreightWaves Classics looks at the Edmund Fitzgerald tragedy, as well as whether Lightfoot’s song about the incident is historically accurate

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04 May
Brielle Jaekel

Navigating the impossible: The dangerous plan to connect 2 oceans

While the Panama Canal has played a crucial role in maritime shipping, its construction was fraught with problems. This episode of Tracks Through Time takes a look back on the 119th anniversary of the start of construction.

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Apr - 2023 -
27 April
Brielle Jaekel

Top 5 books in transportation history that read like novels

The endless stories that make up the history of transportation and freight are chronicled in some of the most riveting nonfiction books, but they almost read like novels. Here are the five favorites for the FreightWaves Classics team.

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21 April
Brielle Jaekel

Deadliest US bridge collapse shrouded in mysterious folklore

The Silver Bridge collapse has a unique folklore, but it also completely changed how we look at safety regulations for bridges. Hear about the collapse and the stories surrounding it. Then get an inside look with West Virginia DOT’s Tracy W. Brown, a state bridge engineer.

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13 April
Brielle Jaekel

Massive ship disappears without a trace in 1980

The latest episode of Tracks Through Time looks at the disappearance of a giant British merchant ship and the long investigation.

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05 April
Brielle Jaekel

The real story behind ‘Goodfellas’

In 1990, Martin Scorsese directed acclaimed gangster flick “Goodfellas,” captivating audiences with the story of a famous heist. The movie was loosely based on the 1978 heist of a Lufthansa airplane’s cargo, and the true story is even more unbelievable than the script.

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Mar - 2023 -
10 March
Brielle Jaekel

Photo gallery: A celebration of Tom Love

View a collection of photos throughout the history of Love’s Travel Stops and the family to celebrate Tom Love’s life.

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09 March
Brielle Jaekel

One woman makes history at the helm in 1856

The first woman to command an American merchant ship did so when her husband was too sick to captain in 1856. She was 19 and four months pregnant.

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06 March
Brielle Jaekel

Why do we have daylight saving time?

Daylight saving time was enacted on Feb. 9, 1942. Some believe the reasoning behind it is no longer relevant and the practice should be discontinued, but how did it start in the first place?

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02 March
Brielle Jaekel

B&O Railroad spread steam locomotives, rail lines across the US

Early U.S. railroad history can thank B&O Railroad for many of its strides forward.

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Feb - 2023 -
17 February
Brielle Jaekel

The worst rail disasters in freight history

As the United States focuses on the disaster unfolding in Ohio after the Norfolk Southern train derailment, here is a look back at some of the worst train disasters in history. The incidents highlight the importance of safety and infrastructure.

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16 February
Brielle Jaekel

How has state marijuana legalization affected trucking?

The American Transportation Research Institute is again investigating the safety and other impacts on the trucking industry of state-level marijuana legalization — as well as additional questions the issue raises.

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03 February
Brielle Jaekel

Pony Express delivers tales of adventure but also failure

The Pony Express lasted only one year and was a financial failure. So why are we still talking about it today?

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Jan - 2023 -
26 January
Brielle Jaekel

Famous Oscar Mayer Wienermobile stands test of time

Debuting in 1936, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile was created as a marketing device and to transport the company spokesman. The unique transportation method went on to symbolize the meat brand and 21st century Americana.

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21 January
Brielle Jaekel

Negligent supply storage led to tragedy in 1919 Great Molasses Flood

Imagine drowning in a flood of molasses that entombed you as it hardened. That’s what 21 people suffered in 1919 when the storage of molasses in Boston went awry.

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12 January
Brielle Jaekel

Still a transportation marvel, Golden Gate Bridge has eventful past

From tragedy to unprecedented feats, the Golden Gate Bridge is an important part of American history in freight, transportation and architecture.

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03 January
Brielle Jaekel

Route 66: How the Mother Road helped connect America

So much of the history of the United States can be traced back to Route 66, including major growth in the trucking industry.

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Dec - 2022 -
29 December
Brielle Jaekel

FreightWaves’ most engaging history stories in 2022

This year, FreightWaves Classics took a look back at some of history’s most interesting stories in freight, logistics and supply chains. These are the articles that readers found most engaging.

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28 December
Brielle Jaekel

20-year mystery on the sea solved

The U.K.’s largest sunken merchant ship met a dramatic end. But no one knew what actually happened until 20 years after the disaster, thanks to the families of the crew who fought hard for answers.

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14 December
Brielle Jaekel

Supply chain on cusp of a revolution, says venture capitalist

Appearing on Fuller Speed Ahead in, Venture 53’s Pat Martin says the supply chain is the most fragmented industry today and that we need AI to solve problems, not automation to replace workers.

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02 December
Brielle Jaekel

Henry Ford’s assembly line celebrates 109 years

It has been 109 years since the assembly line debuted on the Ford factory floor. The system became the basis for an innovative way of manufacturing in the United States.

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Nov - 2022 -
22 November
Brielle Jaekel

Reflecting on the deadly rail strike of 1877

A potential rail strike in the coming weeks has echoes of the infamous railroad strike of 1877, but with hopefully much less dire consequences. (Photo: AP/Gene J. Puskar)

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16 November
Brielle Jaekel

2021 blockage only latest of Suez Canal’s historic moments

Egypt’s Suez Canal was built 153 years ago this week, and its storied history is so much more than last year’s drama.

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