American Rail Traffic Is Gaining Momentum

[FarCenter]

More decent news here in rail trends as we begin to see some signs of life in traffic. Intermodal jumped 6.1% year over year and total traffic was up 2.7%. Carloads were down marginally. This week’s reading brought the 12 week moving average in intermodal to 2.8% which is the highest reading since May. AAR has the details on this week’s report:

http://www.businessinsider.com/rail-traffic-august-10-2013-2013-8

The increase in intermodal (container freight) is good since it reduces heavy truck traffic, which wears the interstates and emits more carbon dioxide.

[Retrograde]

1. About time someone noticed

As long as the tracks and right of ways are already there, using rail for long-distance hauling makes a lot more sense than clogging the roads with big rigs.

[MineralMan]

2. It's hard for me not to notice. My house is two blocks from

a four-track crossing. From time to time, I end up waiting while the arm is down, watching a north-south freight train pass. Southbound, the trains are open cars carrying taconite from the mines up in northern Minnesota, with some container cars and others. Northbound, the taconite cars are empty, but there are more of the containers and normal freight cars. Once in a while, an auto carrier car is in the mix.

It's a four-track crossing because it's part of a big switching system that serves primarily 3M and a couple of other nearby manufacturers. What I've noticed is that the trains seem to be somewhat longer these days. About 6 long trains go by every day, plus some more I hear at night. Lots of traffic.

Now, if they'd just fix the crossing's barrier system. It always goes down, but sometimes fails to return to vertical after the train has passed. I keep reporting it, and they keep sending a repair crew, but it keeps failing. A guy's really got to come to a stop before driving over the tracks. One day the arms won't come down, I'm sure.

[msongs]

3. container freight - comes from china full, goes back to china empty. nt

[leftstreet]

4. Petroleum based products

8/15/2013
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AAR Reports Mixed Weekly Rail Traffic

WASHINGTON, D.C. – August 15, 2013 – The Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported mixed weekly rail traffic for the week ending August 10, 2013, with total U.S. weekly carloads of 288,803 carloads, down 0.2 percent compared with the same week last year. Intermodal volume for the week totaled 257,969 units, up 6.1 percent compared with the same week last year. Total U.S. rail traffic for the week was 546,772 combined carloads and intermodal units, up 2.7 percent compared with the same week last year.

Six of the 10 carload commodity groups posted increases compared with the same week in 2012, led by petroleum and petroleum products with 12,726 carloads, up 16.8 percent. Commodities showing a decrease compared with the same week last year included grain with 16,754 carloads, down 11.4 percent.

For the first 32 weeks of 2013, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 8,890,938 carloads, down 1.3 percent from the same point last year, and 7,747,032 intermodal units, up 3.5 percent from last year. Total U.S. traffic for the first 32 weeks of 2013 was 16,637,970 carloads and intermodal units, up 0.9 percent from last year.

https://www.aar.org/newsandevents/Freight-Rail-Traffic/Pages/2013-08-15-railtraffic.aspx#.UhERij-Tt4U

[FarCenter]

5. Petroleum carloads are offsetting the decline in coal carloads

Containers, OTOH show a net increase.