Railroad shipping: AAR reports rail volumes down 13.7 percent year-over-year
Jeff Berman, Group News Editor -- Logistics Management, 11/5/2009
WASHINGTON-The Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported today that total volume for the week ending October 31 was down 13.7 percent compared to the corresponding week last year and 18.2 percent from the same week in 2007.
AAR officials said last week that they will be reporting 2009 weekly rail traffic with year-over-year comparisons for 2008 and 2007 going forward, due to the fact that at this time a year ago the economic downturn began to take effect.
Weekly carload freight, which does not include intermodal data, was 275,439, which trailed the week ending October 24 tally of 276,357. Carloads were down 14.3 percent in the West year-over-year and 18.3 percent compared to 2007. And in the East, carloads were down 12.9 percent year-over-year and 18 percent compared to 2007.
Intermodal container and trailer volumes-at 203,860 trailers or containers-were down 11.1 percent year-over-year and 15.5 percent compared to 2007. Container volume was off 5.4 percent year-over-year and 8.9 percent compared to 2007, while trailer volume was off 32.3 percent year-over-year and 38.6 percent compared to 2007. As LM has previously reported, while intermodal volumes remain down, there continues to be steady improvement in recent weeks compared to pre-Labor Day volumes, which were in the 189,000-200,000 range.
In recent weeks, the AAR, railroad executives and industry analysts have stated that rail volumes continue to reflect the overall economy and also pointed out that volumes appear to be stabilizing and not getting incrementally worse.
But even with weaker year-over-comparisons, many industry experts contend that even with these signs of stabilization there are no obvious or immediate signs conditions are truly improving. And even with weekly volumes appearing "less worse," analysts maintain that demand remains week, which is continually reflected in these weekly numbers.
Often considered a valid economic indicator, weekly rail volume was estimated at 31.0 billion ton-miles, which is down 12.7 percent year-over-year and down 13.2 percent compared to 2007. On a sequential basis, it was slightly behind the 31.1 billion ton-miles recorded for the week ending October 24.
Of the 19 commodities tracked by the AAR, 15 were down year-over-year, with grain mill products up 9.9 percent and chemical up 3.6 percent. Motor vehicles and equipment were down 13.1 percent and lumber and wood products were down 22.2 percent. Coal loadings were down 16.8 percent.
Through the first 43 weeks of 2009, the AAR said that U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 11,482,619 carloads, a 17.9 percent annual decline and an 18.3 percent decline from 2007. Trailers or containers-at 8,173,640-were down 16.2 percent from 2008 and 18.6 percent from 2007. And total volume of an estimated 1.23 trillion ton-miles was down 17 percent from 2008 and 17.1 percent from 2007.
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