Dayton Freight has moved its Salem, Illinois service center to a newly renovated terminal in Mount Vernon, adding capacity and modernizing its footprint in southern Illinois. The company announced the relocation on September 22, 2025, noting the site features a 32-door cross-dock and updated infrastructure aimed at faster, cleaner turns.
The terminal, located at 2 Fountain Place Drive in Mount Vernon, is positioned to handle higher shipment density and reduce dwell through additional door capacity, which typically allows LTL carriers to stage freight more efficiently and cut rehandle risk. Dayton Freight said the added space is intended to improve workflow and uphold service consistency for shippers in the area.
Operationally, a 32-door facility offers room to balance daytime pickup-and-delivery with overnight linehaul without overcrowding the dock—often the bottleneck in smaller buildings. That balance can support later pickup cutoffs and tighter morning delivery windows as density builds. It also gives dispatchers more flexibility to pre-stage outbound loads and equalize trailer utilization, which, over time, can trim costs per hundredweight and improve on-time performance.
Dayton Freight framed the move as both a service and community play. Local leadership described the Mount Vernon terminal as an upgrade that will help teams “operate more efficiently” while supporting customers across the market—signals that the carrier expects to grow volume through the site as it beds in the new layout.
Why it matters for shippers: during peak periods, added dock doors and yard space can translate into fewer dock jams, quicker cross-dock cycles, and more reliable appointment adherence. For carriers, a right‑sized building reduces overtime tied to congestion, lowers damage risk from excessive touches, and opens capacity to absorb surges without leaning on costly overflow workarounds.
Strategically, the relocation extends Dayton Freight’s network resiliency in a part of Illinois that feeds multiple regional lanes. As volumes ebb and flow, the larger Mount Vernon site gives planners more options to route freight directly rather than detouring through congested hubs, which can shave hours from total transit and stabilize cycle times in softer or tighter markets alike.
Sources: FreightWaves, Dayton Freight
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