The Association of American Railroads (AAR) recently released its U.S. rail traffic report for the week ended Feb. 20.
For that week, the volume of U.S. intermodal units and carloads totaled 497,210, an increase of 5.1 percent over the same week in 2015.
The week’s cumulative carloads stood at 244,747, a 5.7 percent decline compared with the same week last year. Intermodal volume totaled 252,463 trailers and containers, rising 18.2 percent compared with last year.
Five out of 10 carload commodity groups reported a rise over the same week last year, including miscellaneous carloads (up 22.5 percent, to 8,376 carloads), motor vehicles and parts (up 30.7 percent, to 19,620 carloads) and nonmetallic minerals (up 6.4 percent, to 30,349 carloads).
The remaining five commodity groups reported declines compared with the same week last year, including coal (down 20.2 percent, to 76,571 carloads), petroleum and related products (down 22.1 percent, to 10,262), and food and farm products (down 5.7 percent, to 15,622 carloads).
During the first seven weeks of this year, volume totaled 1,698,803 carloads, a decline of 14.3 percent compared with the first seven weeks of last year. Intermodal units totaled 1,815,728, up 7.3 percent compared with last year.
