Railroad shipping: AAR reports weekly carload and intermodal volumes are down again

WASHINGTON¡ªThe Association of American Railroads (AAR) said this week that carload freight volumes and intermodal traffic volumes were down on United States railroads for the week ending August 9 compared to last year.

Weekly carload freight, which does not include intermodal data, came in at 328,281 cars, down 0.1 percent from the same timeframe last year. And carload freight loadings were up 1.2 percent in the West and down 2.0 percent in the East.

Intermodal loadings, which are not included in carload data, totaled 233,948 trailers or containers, decreasing 1.4 percent compared to the same timeframe a year ago. Trailer volume was up 0.3 percent, and container volume was off by 1.9 percent.

Weekly railroad volume was estimated at 34.2 billion ton-miles by the AAR, which was the same as last year for the same timeframe.

Of the 19 commodity groups tracked by the AAR, seven were up year over year, with metallic ores up 49.5 percent and metals up 5.3 percent. Motor vehicles and equipment were down 29.6 percent, and lumber and wood products were down 16.9 percent.  

Cumulative volume for the first 32 weeks of the year came in at 10,386,894 carloads, which was ahead of the first 32 weeks of 2007 by 0.3 percent. Trailers or containers¡ªat 7,120,760¡ªwere down 3.0 percent, and total volume was an estimated 1.08 trillion ton-miles, which was up 1.5 percent year over year.