This recession has seen the volume of international cargo containers moving through U.S. ports drop for 22 straight months.

That's a serious loss of business for inland ports like Alliance Texas in North Fort Worth and a loss of momentum for the budding International Inland Port of Dallas. Since cargo movements indicate when things will start to pick up again, it doesn't speak well for the overall economy, either.

But the trains and trucks hauling cargo through North Texas for container ships will come back. The area simply has too much going for it.

"We're positioned to go nationally, regionally or internationally" as an inland port, said Terrance Pohlen, an assistant professor of logistics at the University of North Texas.

You don't need a waterway to be an inland port. Shippers have worked out arrangements with the U.S. government to seal arriving cargoes until they can be opened for inspection well away from the docks. The mammoth warehouses of Alliance Texas, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and new ones sprouting in southern Dallas County allow companies to consolidate cargoes destined for specific stores and move them on the last leg of their journeys by truck.

Ross Perot Jr.'s Alliance Texas inland port showed how marrying trucks, trains and planes could be a terrific economic engine.

When consumers quit buying so much imported stuff, though, inland ports relying on goods shipped here from Asia slumped.

Texas exports more than any other state, and that helped the ports in the state. But trade has fallen around the world this year.

Richard Allen, CEO of the Allen Group, which is building the Dallas Logistics Hub, notes that industrial building space fell last year across the nation but was up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

"Texas in general and the Dallas-Fort Worth area in particular has been the least affected" by the recession, he said. "This market wasn't overheated, and it hasn't crashed."

Some trade experts are advising ports to steal business away from each other to survive the recession. Allen sees "enough business for everyone" coming to North Texas.

Right now, Allen is less ambitious than UNT's Pohlen. The future of inland ports in North Texas is the regional market rather than a national one.

"I don't buy into the premise that somebody's going to build warehouses in Dallas to service Atlanta or Columbus," he said. "It is a regional market."

Pohlen sees three variables that will determine how big a market the North Texas inland ports will serve.

"What's going to drive it is, how fast does the economy recover? What's the capacity of the transportation system? And what are fuel prices?" he said.

Mayor Tom Leppert and City Council member Ron Natinsky are hoping links with Mexico will strengthen the inland port in southern Dallas County. Mexico receives a third of Texas' exports, and Pacific ports like Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas could be new gateways for Asian shippers hoping to avoid California congestion.

Leppert and Natinsky have talked with leaders in Monterrey about a rail corridor between the two cities and Mexico's Pacific ports.

So far, the railroads aren't excited about Dallas. Kansas City Southern, which is exploring a rail corridor between Monterrey and Texas, has Houston in mind, and then only as a stop on the way.

Container cargoes moving through an expanded Panama Canal are also expected to benefit Texas – but Houston would more likely reap the benefit, Pohlen said, because railroads will be reluctant to run the short haul from the Gulf Coast to Dallas.

Whether or not the railroads deepen their involvement, North Texas will grow as a logistics center. Some manufacturers are moving back from China to Mexico and the Southern states to be closer to markets. And trucks leaving Dallas can get to most of the country within two days.