February 9, 2010
Short line railroads surveyed for the RMI RailConnect index hauled 85,276 combined carloads and intermodal units in the week ending July 4, well ahead of the Memorial Day week at the end of May but not enough to keep the year-over-year numbers from worsening.
RMI said traffic was down 32.81 percent from the same week last year, the worst since May 30 when the decline was 37.65 percent.
RMI is lately surveying 341 short line railroads, compared with 344 at the end of May when they hauled 78,442 loads.
Coal hauls at July 4 were down by more than 1,000 loads from a week earlier, and many other cargoes fell in the holiday week as well. However, grain loadings jumped to 13,518 carloads from 11,190 a week earlier, for the strongest short line grain volume since March 7.
This is the time when harvests are under way of winter wheat in the Southwest and Great Plains, and an incoming harvest can prompt grain elevators to ship older supplies to clear space for the new product.
Paper product shipments moved higher to 5,860 loads from 5,533 despite the holiday, and ore hauls edged up to 1,804 from 1,740 in the week of June 27.
Short lines are not major carriers of intermodal trailers and containers, and this year has seen that business cut in half for the smaller railroads. The holiday week saw RMI reporting carriers haul 5,957 intermodal units, up from 5,586 a week before but down from most other recent weeks.
Contact John Boyd at jboyd@joc.com.
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