In 1966, Canadian Pacific Railway had a problem. Empty boxcars were piling up in Eastern Canada with no payload for the return trip west. The solution was a small freight company called Fastfrate, created specifically to fill those cars with less-than-truckload shipments bound for Western Canada.
Six decades later, that single-service operation has become one of North America’s largest privately held supply chain providers as a group of seven companies spanning intermodal, truckload, drayage, warehousing, e-commerce fulfillment, final-mile delivery, international freight forwarding, and customs brokerage, operating across more than 46 locations in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
The transformation was orchestrated over a period of decades by Ron Tepper, the executive chairman who first acquired Fastfrate in 1994 and has guided every major inflection point since, including selling to private equity, buying the company back, and assembling an acquisition portfolio that has reshaped what the company can offer shippers across the continent.
“We’ve been a favored son of CP Rail since the beginning,” Tepper said in an interview with FreightWaves. “Our facilities began as a boxcar operation which provided one-way moves and no balance requirements.”
[Credit: Fastfrate]
The intermodal pivot
The first major turning point came in the late 1990s. As railways anticipated surging demand from China’s manufacturing boom, CP Rail’s leadership told Fastfrate it was time to move away from boxcars entirely.
“In 1998, railways foresaw huge demand from China,” Tepper said. “Senior execs who worked closely with China foresaw the effects the Chinese market would have on shipping, both east to west and west to east. It wasn’t a question. We were told to move away from the boxcars, to make ourselves an intermodal operation.”
The mandate carried risk. Fastfrate needed to build crossdock facilities across the country (Halifax, Winnipeg, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Vancouver) and buy a facility in Montreal. At the time, the company wasn’t sure it could absorb the investment. But Tepper made the bet, and it paid off in two ways: Fastfrate became the first major Canadian LTL carrier to convert fully to intermodal, capturing significant market share before competitors followed suit, and the real estate portfolio it built adjacent to CP Rail yards has appreciated dramatically as Canadian urban land values have climbed.
“We were the first major player in the LTL space to convert to intermodal from boxcar,” Tepper said. “Within two years, every other major Canadian carrier converted, but we gained a good market share and grew organically.”
That intermodal conversion also created a new business line. As Fastfrate moved from boxcars to containers, it needed trucks to haul those containers between rail yards and customers, so it built Canada Drayage Inc. (CDI) in 1999.
“Today, we’re the only drayage provider that covers from Halifax to Vancouver,” Tepper said. “We have over 600 trucks doing OTR shipping to meet the needs of our shippers from end to end. We didn’t buy that business, we built it, and we’re proud of that.”
[Credit: Fastfrate]
The buyback and the build-out
Tepper sold 75% of Fastfrate to Fenway Equities in 2007. He retained a quarter of the company through a difficult stretch from 2009 to 2017, then bought back full ownership. Since regaining control, he has executed a series of acquisitions that systematically filled gaps in Fastfrate’s service portfolio, each one adding a new layer to what has become a fully integrated supply chain network.
In 2021, Fastfrate acquired ASL Distribution Services and Precision Parcel & Package Deliveries. ASL, a 66-year-old company with more than 500,000 square feet of warehouse space, brought integrated warehousing, e-commerce fulfillment, and distribution capability. Precision added final-mile courier services for both B2B and B2C deliveries, handling everything from small parcels to oversized freight.
In 2022, Fastfrate acquired a majority stake in Challenger Motor Freight, one of Canada’s largest cross-border trucking companies, operating more than 1,200 trucks and 3,500 trailers with 500 to 700 border crossings daily. The deal gave Fastfrate full truckload capacity and a major U.S. footprint for the first time.
And in early 2026, Fastfrate closed on Omnitrans Inc., a Montreal-based international freight forwarder and licensed customs broker with more than 230 established trade lanes and a direct operating presence in China. That acquisition extended Fastfrate’s reach all the way back to the point of origin, completing the end-to-end vision.
“We added companies and left them intact so that we could continue adding new services to our company,” Tepper said. “Every purchase has been to add to our services and synergize to become a full end-to-end provider.”
[Credit: Fastfrate]
The CPKC backbone
Threading through the entire 60-year story is Fastfrate’s partnership with what is now Canadian Pacific Kansas City, the only single-line rail network connecting Canada, the United States, and Mexico. CPKC’s merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern created a transcontinental rail corridor, and Fastfrate, as the railway’s largest and longest-standing carrier-customer, is uniquely positioned to leverage it.
Fastfrate co-locates with CPKC at intermodal terminals across the continent. In Toronto and Montreal, the two companies have jointly invested in private gate technology (what CPKC calls the “FastPass”) that gives Fastfrate’s drayage trucks dedicated access to rail facilities, bypassing the congestion that can cost other carriers hours per turn. Fastfrate has also dedicated 15 acres of property adjacent to CPKC’s Toronto intermodal facility for a container yard and pre-pull operation.
[Credit: Fastfrate]
“Our relationship with CP Rail has been longstanding, and we’ve been close partners since day one,” Tepper said. “I’ve been around for the tenure of four different CP Rail CEOs, and we’ve always maintained a true strategic partnership. We’ve grown our businesses together.”
That partnership now extends into Mexico, where Fastfrate has deployed containers on CPKC’s Mexico Midwest Express service and established operations in Monterrey and Mexico City. Challenger’s automotive freight expertise in serving major customers in the automotive industry aligns directly with the northbound and southbound parts flows that dominate the Mexico corridor.
Revenue diversification and the road ahead
The cumulative effect of Fastfrate’s acquisition strategy is visible in its revenue composition. In fiscal 2020, LTL accounted for nearly 67% of the company’s revenue, with logistics at 11%, drayage at 21%, and warehousing at less than 1%. By its pro-forma 2026 projections, that mix has shifted dramatically: LTL and truckload each represent roughly 22%, logistics accounts for 23%, final mile for nearly 11%, drayage for about 11%, and the newly added freight forwarding and customs brokerage segments contribute a combined 8%.
“We were originally dependent on LTL, but we’ve continually expanded by adding logistics organizations, warehousing, drayage, and final mile,” Tepper said. “We’re no longer dependent on one service. That balance gives us more stability throughout the year and when various external factors affect the market, like international tariffs, weather events, seasonal fluctuations, and so on.”
[Credit: Fastfrate]
Looking ahead, Tepper signaled that the company isn’t finished building. Growth into the U.S. and Mexico will continue, particularly as nearshoring trends accelerate cross-border trade flows. And the company is investing in technology such as automated robotic sorting centers, AI-driven empty-mile optimization, and workflow automation to scale operations faster.
Automation and AI investment
At Precision Parcel & Package Deliveries, Fastfrate’s final-mile division, the company is deploying a T-Sort robotic sortation system powered by a fleet of 160 autonomous guided robots. The installation spans a 220-by-85-foot footprint with 312 sorting destinations across nine sortation fingers, capable of processing up to 7,500 parcels per hour. The AGVs navigate via floor-mounted markers, automatically transport parcels from induction stations to destination chutes, and return themselves to self-charging docks, all without manual intervention. Automated print-and-apply labeling and a centralized HMI control station round out the system.
This infrastructure investment reflects where Fastfrate sees the final-mile business heading; as in, higher volumes, faster throughput, and allowing the company to increase capacity for the marketplace as e-commerce fulfillment demand continues to intensify across North America.
[Credit: Fastfrate]
The automation push extends well beyond the warehouse floor. Across the broader Fastfrate Group, the company is rolling out a suite of AI-powered tools designed to streamline operations at every customer touchpoint. An AI system now organizes inbound IT helpdesk tickets, routing and prioritizing service requests without manual triage. Another handles live phone inquiries, providing automated shipment tracking to callers. A third tool contacts drivers directly to collect real-time status updates (including position, proximity to destination, and border crossing confirmations) and feeds that information back into Fastfrate’s operational systems automatically.
On the customer-facing side, AI is being deployed to handle email responses for spot quote requests and tracking inquiries.
“We’re also investing in upgraded facilities and all the latest tech,” Tepper said. “With tools like that, we will continue to scale operations faster and faster.”
While Fastfrate started 60 years ago by filling empty boxcars, the next chapter of growth will be powered as much by software as by steel.
But through all the expansion, Tepper returned to the people who made it possible.
“We want our legacy to be one of growth, risk-taking, and taking care of our employees first at all times,” Tepper said. “We have incredibly low turnover, and a lot of 30- and 40-year employees. They’re treated well, and we know that the business has grown on the strength of our employees. You need the right people at the right place to make it all work, and that’s one thing we’ll always be proud of.”
If you’re a U.S. shipper and you’re unfamiliar with the name Fastfrate, Tepper’s message was straightforward.
“We’re coming,” he said. “We’re going to continue growing in Mexico and the U.S. like we have in Canada.”
Click here to learn more about Fastfrate.
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