Railroad shipping:AAR says carload, intermodal volumes both down for the week ending June 7

Staff -- Logistics Management, 6/13/2008

WASHINGTON—The American Association of Railroads (AAR) said this week that carload freight volumes and intermodal traffic were down on United States railroads for the week ending June 7 compared to last year.

Weekly carload freight, which does not include intermodal data, came in at 323,985 cars, down 2.1 percent from the same timeframe last year. And carload freight loadings were up 0.2 percent in the West and down 5.2 percent in the East.

Intermodal loadings, which are not included in carload data, totaled 236,384 trailers or containers, decreasing 1.1 percent compared to the same timeframe a year ago. Trailer volume was up 1.5 percent, and container volume was off by 1.3 percent. The AAR noted that this data marks the fifth consecutive week that intermodal trailer volumes are up year over year. This is due partially to rising oil and gas prices, which are forcing some shippers to rethink their freight transportation strategies and move more freight to the railroads.

Weekly railroad volume was estimated at 33.6 billion ton-miles by the AAR, which is nearly identical to the same week last year.

Of the 19 commodity groups tracked by the AAR, six were up year over year, with nonmetallic minerals up 8.1 percent and coal up 2.5 percent. On the other end were lumber and wood products down 16.5 percent and motor vehicles down 18.6 percent.

Cumulative volume for the first 23 weeks of the year were 9,193,361 carloads, which was ahead of the first 23 weeks of 2007 by 0.8 percent. Trailers or containers—at 5,074,370—were down 3.3 percent, and total volume was an estimated 773.7 billion ton-miles, which was up 2.1 percent year over year.