Industry News

U.S. Rail Traffic

Some Commodity Groups Show Increase

November 6, 2009 | 01:00 p.m. CST

U.S. railroads reported originating 275,439 carloads for the week ended Oct. 31, down 13.7 percent compared to the same week in 2008 and down 18.2 percent from 2007, reports the Association of American Railroads.

In the West, carloads were down 14.3 percent compared with the same week last year, and 18.3 percent compared with 2007. In the East, carloads were down 12.9 percent compared with 2008, and 18.0 percent compared with the same week in 2007.

Intermodal traffic totaled 203,860 trailers and containers, down 11.1 percent from a year ago and 15.5 percent from 2007. Compared with the same week in 2008, container volume fell 5.4 percent and trailer volume dropped 32.3 percent. Compared with the same week in 2007, container volume fell 8.9 percent and trailer volume dropped 38.6 percent.

While 15 of the 19 carload freight commodity groups were down compared with the same week last year, increases were seen in grain mill products (9.9 percent), chemicals (3.6 percent), and waste and scrap metal (.7 percent and nonmetallic minerals (.3 percent). Declines in commodity groups ranged from 2.2 percent for the all other carloads category to 55.6 percent for metallic ores.

Total volume on U.S. railroads for the week ending Oct. 31, 2009, was estimated at 31 billion ton-miles, down 12.7 percent compared with the same week last year and 13.2 percent from 2007.

For the first 43 weeks of 2009, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 11,482,619 carloads, down 17.9 percent from 2008 and 18.3 percent from 2007; 8,173,640 trailers or containers, down 16.2 percent from 2008 and 18.6 percent from 2007, and total volume of an estimated 1.23 trillion ton-miles, down 17 percent from 2008 and 17.1 percent from 2007.

Combined North American rail volume for the first 43 weeks of 2009 on 13 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads totaled 14,633,769 carloads, down 18.3 percent from last year, and 10,168,924 trailers and containers, down 16.2 percent from last year.