Railroad shipping: AAR says carload freight up, intermodal down again this week

Staff -- Logistics Management, 7/25/2008

WASHINGTON—In a repeat of last week’s railroad freight output, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) said that carload freight volumes were up and intermodal traffic volumes were down on United States railroads for the week ending July 19 compared to last year.

Weekly carload freight, which does not include intermodal data, came in at 328,634 cars, up 2.3 percent from the same timeframe last year. And carload freight loadings were up 6.3 percent in the West and down 3.0 percent in the East.

Intermodal loadings, which are not included in carload data, totaled 233,516 trailers or containers, decreasing 2.4 percent compared to the same timeframe a year ago. Trailer volume was up 1.1 percent, and container volume was off by 3.3 percent.

Weekly railroad volume was estimated at 34.5 billion ton-miles by the AAR, which was up 3.9 percent compared to the 29^th week of 2007.

Of the 19 commodity groups tracked by the AAR, only five were up year over year, with grain leading the way with a ten percent increase. Motor vehicles and parts were down 24.0 percent, and lumber and wood products were down 18.9 percent.  

Cumulative volume for the first 29 weeks of the year came in at 9,387,661 carloads, which was ahead of the first 29 weeks of 2007 by 0.4 percent. Trailers or containers—at 6,420,590—were down 3.1 percent, and total volume was an estimated 971.9 billion ton-miles, which was up 1.7 percent year over year.