Railroad shipping: AAR reports rail traffic is down for week ending January 20

WASHINGTON—Despite some recent signals of improvement, carload freight and intermodal traffic volumes were down on United States railroads for the week ending January 20, according to the Association of American Railroads.

 

Weekly carload freight, which does not include intermodal data, came in at 261,717 cars, down 17.7 percent from the same timeframe last year, said the AAR. And carload freight loadings were down 11.9 percent in the West and 25.2 percent in the East.

In preceding weeks, weekly carload freight totals showed some modest upticks, with carloads for the week ending June 13 hitting their highest level in ten weeks and some sequential week-over-week intermodal gains as well.

 

But as this week’s report indicates, the gains were short-lived and are likely to remain at this level until there is more visible evidence of an economic recovery. As has been the case since late 2008, it appears the recession has caught up to railroad carriers, with weekly volumes hovering around 250,000 to 270,000 weekly carloads for Class I railroad carriers—numbers that are well below average.

 

This is certainly different from a year ago, when rail volumes were chugging along to their fourth best volume year on record—despite signs that a recession was imminent— according to the AAR.

 

A railroad industry analyst told LM prior to the recession that what happens with the railroads in terms of volumes of pricing is not a barometer of the general economy, considering that railroads typically barely earn above their cost of capital and pay for their own infrastructure improvements.

 

Intermodal loadings, which are not included in carload data, totaled 187,759 trailers or containers, down 17.8 percent compared to the same timeframe a year ago. Trailer volume was down 39.0 percent, and container volume decreased 12.0 percent.

 

Weekly railroad volume was estimated at 27.7 billion ton-miles by the AAR which was down 16.6 percent from a year ago and matching the weeks ending June 13 and June 6.

 

And for the first 24 weeks of 2009, the AAR said U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 6,323,360 carloads, which is down 19.4 percent from the first 24 weeks of 2008. Trailers or containers at 4,458,136 were down 16.9 percent, and total volume at an estimated 671.0 billion ton-miles was off by 18.3 percent year-over-year.

 

Of the 19 commodity groups tracked by the AAR, only the “all other carloads” category was up year-over-year at 11.9 percent. Lumber and wood products were down by 37.6 percent and motor vehicles and equipment were down by 51.6 percent.

 

 

(Source: Logistics)