The Association of American Railroads (AAR) released freight-rail data recently for the week ending on May 21.
U.S. weekly rail traffic totaled 506,983 carloads and intermodal units, down 8.5 percent compared with the same week a year ago.
AAR said carloads totaled 244,290 last week, down 10.6 percent compared with the same period in 2015. Four carload commodity groups saw increases over the same period, including non-metallic minerals, automotive parts and miscellaneous products. As has been the case for awhile, decreases were reported in coal, petroleum and petroleum-related products.
Intermodal units shipped last week totaled 262,693 containers and trailers, down 6.5 percent compared with 2015.
So far this year, AAR reports a total of 4,803,310 carloads, 14 percent less than a year ago, and 5,150,727 intermodal units, down by 1.7 percent. Combined, carloads and intermodal units over the course of 2016 are 8.1 percent lower than this time in 2015.
Decreases compared with a year ago also were reported in freight-rail traffic across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with an average drop of 10.2 percent spread over 13 railroads that reported data from these three nations.
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