AAR publishes latest weekly rail traffic

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) published the latest U.S. weekly rail traffic Wednesday for the week ending Nov. 28 as well as for the first 11 months in this year.

For November, carload traffic amounted to 1,041,605 carloads. This is a decline of 10.4 percent or 120,259 carloads compared to November of last year. Additionally, U.S. railroads generated 1,024,162 trailers and containers for the month. This shows a decrease of 1 percent or 10,828 units compared to the same month in 2014.

Combined U.S. intermodal and carload generations for the month amounted to 2,065,767. This is a decline of 6 percent or 131,087 intermodal units and carloads compared to the same month of last year.

For November 2015, there were six out of the 20 carload commodity categories that showed increases compared to the same month last year. The AAR tracked motor vehicles and parts (increased by 4.7 percent or 3,142 carloads), non-metallic minerals (rose by 6.9 percent or 1,142 carloads) and miscellaneous carloads (increased by 32.9 percent or 5,515 carloads).

There were also a series of commodities that showed declines for November 2015 compared to November 2014. These are petroleum and related products (declined by 20.1 percent or 12,570 carloads), coal (down by 17.6 percent or 78,798 carloads) and metallic ores (fell by 31.7 percent or 10,056 carloads).

"The decline in rail carload traffic in November 2015 was broad based, reflecting manufacturing slowdowns, energy prices and policy and the constraint of a strong dollar,” John T. Gray, AAR Senior vice president of Policy and Economics, said. “Even intermodal was down in November, largely due to reduced international traffic. Railroads are well-positioned to serve their customers safely and reliably, but the economy has to cooperate. We're hopeful that will happen soon."