Industry News

Rail Freight Traffic Remains Down

May 14, 2009 | 02:45 p.m. CDT

Freight traffic on U.S. railroads remained sharply down from a year ago during the week ended May 9, reports the Association of American Railroads.

U.S. railroads originated 249,576 cars during the week, down 25.8 percent from the same week in 2008, with loadings down 21.4 percent in the West and 31.7 percent in the East. All 19 carload commodity groups were down from last year, with declines ranging from 10.7 percent for the catch-all category of all other carloads to 64.7 percent for metals and metal products. Intermodal volume of 181,662 trailers or containers was off 21.0 percent from last year, with container volume down 16.4 percent and trailer traffic off 37.9 percent. Total volume was estimated at 26.4 billion ton-miles, off 25.2 percent from 2008.

For the first 18 weeks of 2009, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 4,789,321 carloads, down 18.8 percent from 2008; 3,343,134 trailers or containers, down 16.5 percent; and total volume of an estimated 508.4 billion ton-miles, down 17.7 percent.

Combined North American rail volume for the first 18 weeks of 2009 on 14 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads totaled 6,071,074 carloads, down 19.3 percent from last year, and 4,161,194 trailers and containers, down 16.2 percent from last year.