Railroad Volume Jumps to 2009 High

Large U.S. railroads have waited all year for a week like this one.

After weeks of small overall gains, and a period when a surge in a few cargoes might at times mask a pullback in many others, traffic counts swelled up and down the line.

Bulk carload traffic jumped 2.2 percent in the week ending Aug. 29, from just seven days earlier, and set a new 2009 high at 285,580 loads. A number of separate cargo categories also hit new peaks from their lowest points of the recession, suggesting widely dispersed strength in freight demand.

Intermodal volume was the best since Jan. 10 or the first full week of this year, and was up 4.8 percent from a week earlier at 202,553 units. Train hauls of containers that reflect domestic-only as well as ocean-borne international traffic were up to 171,367 units, while trailers that are all domestic business reached 31,186 loads.

The numbers from the Association of American Railroads are based on reports for the U.S. operations of all seven Class I carriers plus a few large regional lines.

The latest report included new year-to-date shipment peaks for chemicals, scrap materials and metallic ores needed by factories, plus construction-related hauls of logs or other primary forest products and a grouping of stone, clay and glass products.

Several other categories had solid gains even though they did not set new highs. If it is sustained, such well-distributed demand for freight transportation signals a deepening recovery for the broader economy.

Loadings of coal hopper cars, the largest rail cargo by far and needed for electricity when industries are powering up, reached the highest level since March 21. Shipments of automobiles or other large pieces of equipment took up the most railcars since March 14.

AAR noted that carloads were still down 16.2 percent from the same 2008 week, while intermodal traffic was down 15.6 percent. But those levels are improved from year-to-date performance, and show that rail traffic at the end of August was starting to escalate from what had been only moderate gains in recent weeks.

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