Railroad shipping: AAR reports weekly volumes are mixed

Staff -- Logistics Management, 10/10/2008

WASHINGTON—The Association of American Railroads (AAR) said carload freight volumes and intermodal traffic volumes were mixed on United States railroads for the week ending October 4 compared to the same timeframe last year.

Weekly carload freight, which does not include intermodal data, came in at 336,457 cars, down 0.1 percent from the same timeframe last year. And carload freight loadings were up 0.9 percent in the West and down 1.6 percent in the East.

Intermodal loadings, which are not included in carload data, totaled 244,828 trailers or containers, increasing 0.8 percent compared to the same timeframe a year ago. Trailer volume was down 3.5 percent, and container volume was up 2.0 percent.

Weekly railroad volume was estimated at 35.7 billion ton-miles by the AAR, which was up 0.8 percent from the same timeframe last year.

Of the 21 commodity groups tracked by the AAR, three were up year over year, with coal up 7.7 percent. Motor vehicles and equipment loadings were down 27.8 percent, and coke loadings were down 23.8 percent.  

Cumulative volume for the first 40 weeks of the year came in at 13,013,645 carloads, which was down 0.2 percent the first 40 weeks of 2007. Trailers or containers—at 8,991,459—were down 3.0 percent, and total volume was an estimated 1.35 trillion ton-miles, which was up 0.9 percent year over year.