Ocean Traffic Dampens North American Intermodal

Shipments of rail-truck intermodal cargoes across the United States and Canada are showing more signs of life, but are swamped by continued sharp declines for international shipments that are mainly ocean-borne imports.

The Intermodal Association of North America said domestic cargo originations, combining truck trailers and the large-cube containers built solely for that domestic market, fell 9 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier.

However, domestic container moves actually increased as more big shippers move out of chassis-equipped trailer equipment. Those containers, mostly 53-footers, made up nearly two thirds of all domestic loads at 969,231 units, compared with 386,586 trailers in the April-June period.

Yet the driving force for the rail-truck box shipment industry across this continent remains the international containers that are dominated by imports coming into U.S. ocean ports. IANA said the international loadings fell 26 percent from a year earlier to 1.47 million containers.

Of nine geographic regions IANA lists in Canada and the U.S., it said domestic loading improved year-over-year in five but that international container moves declined at double-digit rates in all nine.

That is all in line with numerous signs that this continent’s economies may be pulling out of the recession, but that trade with other parts of the world is slower to recover. Part of that reflects continued weak U.S. consumer demand for imported goods. Meanwhile, some of the growth that is taking hold in recent weeks comes from government efforts to stimulate companies at home.

Contact John D. Boyd at jboyd@joc.com.