“Rail traffic growth remains a bit mixed, but is still logging year over year growth. Carloads remain tepid at 2.3% while intermodal is a more healthy 8.3%. The AAR has the details on this week’s data:
“The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported steady results in weekly rail traffic with U.S. railroads originating 295,148 carloads for the week ending May 21, 2011, up 2.3 percent compared with the same week last year. Intermodal volume for the week totaled 234,235 trailers and containers, up 8.7 percent compared with the same week in 2010.
Twelve of the 20 carload commodity groups posted increases from the comparable week in 2010. Commodity groups posting significant increases were grain, up 12.9 percent, and metallic ores, up 11.5 percent. Groups posting a notable decrease were waste and nonferrous scrap, down 17.2 percent, and primary forest products, down 10.1 percent.
Weekly carload volume on Eastern railroads was up 0.9 percent compared with the same week last year. In the West, weekly carload volume was up 3.3 percent compared with the same week in 2010.
For the first 20 weeks of 2011, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 5,822,505 carloads, up 3.3 percent from last year, and 4,469,033 trailers and containers, up 8.8 percent from the same point in 2010.””
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