Railroad shipping: AAR reports another down week for volumes

WASHINGTON¡ªThe Association of American Railroads (AAR) said carload freight volumes and intermodal traffic volumes were down again on United States railroads for the week ending October 18 compared to the same timeframe last year.

Weekly carload freight, which does not include intermodal data, came in at 326,374 cars, down 2.4 percent from the same timeframe last year. And carload freight loadings were down 0.1 percent in the West and 5.5 percent in the East.

Intermodal loadings, which are not included in carload data, totaled 235,750 trailers or containers, decreasing 2.8 percent compared to the same timeframe a year ago. Trailer volume was down 7.8 percent, and container volume was off by 1.4 percent.

Weekly railroad volume was estimated at 34.5 billion ton-miles by the AAR, which was down 1.4 percent from the same timeframe last year.

Of the 21 commodity groups tracked by the AAR, four groups were up year over year, with metallic ores up 11.7 percent and coal up 5.3 percent. Lumber and wood products were down 20.7 percent, and metals were down 20.8 percent.  

Cumulative volume for the first 42 weeks of the year came in at 13,671,118 carloads, which was down 0.3 percent compared to the first 42 weeks of 2007. Trailers or containers¡ªat 9,461,941¡ªwere down 3.0 percent, and total volume was an estimated 1.42 trillion ton-miles, which was up 0.8 percent year over year.