Railroad shipping: AAR reports another down week for volume to kick off 2009
Staff -- Logistics Management, 1/16/2009
WASHINGTON—Railroad volumes are beginning 2009 where they left off 2008, with the the Association of American Railroads (AAR) stating that carload freight volumes and intermodal traffic volumes were down once again on United States railroads for the first week of the year compared to the same timeframe last year.
Weekly carload freight, which does not include intermodal data, was 271,471 cars, down 17.7 percent from the same timeframe last year. And carload freight loadings were down 13.4 percent in the West and 23.7 percent in the East.
Intermodal loadings, which are not included in carload data, totaled 204,103 trailers or containers, down 14.3 percent compared to the same timeframe a year ago. Trailer volume was down 31.4 percent, and container volume decreased 9.8 percent.
Weekly railroad volume was estimated at 28.8 billion ton-miles by the AAR which was down 16.3 percent from the same timeframe last year.
Of the 19 commodity groups tracked by the AAR, none were up year over year, with farm products and motor vehicles and equipment loadings down 51.0 percent and 69.8 percent, respectively.
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