AAR reports carload and intermodal volumes are up for week ending March 16

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported this week that United States carload and intermodal volumes were both up—rather than the months-long trend of mixed—for the week ending March 16.

Carload volume—at 280,624—were up 0.5 percent annually, ahead of the week ending March 9 at 276,698 and below the week ending March 2 at 283,819.

Intermodal—at 228,806 containers and trailers—was up 0.7 percent annually, below the weeks ending March 9 and March 2 at 235,174 and 249,238, respectively.

Total weekly traffic for carloads and intermodal units—at 509,430—was up 0.6 percent annually.

The AAR recently changed how it reports weekly commodity loadings. Its former process was comprised of 20 distinct commodity groups, which have now been grouped together.

The new commodity categories are: chemicals; coal; farm and food products, excluding grain (which includes farm products, excluding grain, grain mill products and food & kindred products); forest products; grain; metallic ores and metals (which also includes metallic ores, coke, metals & products, iron & steel scrap); motor vehicles and parts (which also includes motor vehicles and equipment); nonmetallic minerals and products (which also includes crushed stone, sand, and gravel; nonmetallic minerals; stone, clay & glass products); petroleum and petroleum products); and other (which includes waste and nonferrous scrap and all other carloads).

For the week ending March 16, five of the ten commodity groups showed gains, including petroleum products up 58.3 percent and motor vehicles and parts up 15.6 percent. Grain was down 19.2 percent.

On a year-to-date basis, carloads are down 3.3 percent at 3,010769 and intermodal is up 6.6 percent at 2,615,688 containers and trailers.