Large Railroads See Rebound in Weekly Traffic

Freight traffic moved higher last week at North America’s major railroads, after a sizable decline in the holiday week ahead of Easter.

The seven Class I railroads in the U.S. and Canada, plus some regional lines that also report traffic through the Association of American Railroads, saw their new intermodal loads rise to 254,161 units in the week ending April 10.

A week earlier, their 243,351 intermodal originations was the lowest since Feb. 6. But the week of April 3 included Good Friday, which is a holiday for many businesses and so would reduce shipment activity.

The latest intermodal volume is still below the 263,169 units picked up during the week of March 27, but otherwise well within the recent range since the big snowstorms of February. And the April 10 container and trailer moves were up 15.8 percent from the same week of 2009.

Rail pickups of bulk materials and equipment that is carried in large railcars totaled 377,494 loads last week. That was up from 372,270 a week earlier, but below the March 27 volume of 383,109 carloads. It was also 20.5 percent ahead of the 2009 week, when traffic was near the bottom of the recession period.

Construction materials appear to be taking carloads higher, as the railroads reported weekly gains in stone and sand that are used in site preparation, plus lumber in buildings or renovations and a category of semi-finished stone, clay and glass materials.

Railroads also hauled more automobiles last week, scrap materials headed for recycling by factories to help meet demand for inputs, and a bit more coal.

Through the first 14 weeks of 2010, carload traffic for the major North American railroads was 6.2 percent higher than in the same period last year, while intermodal was 9.3 percent higher.

Contact John Boyd at jboyd@joc.com.