Short Line Traffic Hits Low for Year

A flailing freight market took a weekly gauge of short line traffic to its lowest level of the year, but some cargoes still managed to hit their highest totals of this spring.

RMI’s RailConnect index showed that the 347 carriers that report to it – out of more than 500 across North America – hauled 83,796 bulk carload and intermodal units in the week ending April 25, down nearly 2,500 loads from a week earlier and a full 33.7 percent below the same week in 2008.

Coal and chemicals, the two largest cargo categories, accounted for most of the week’s drop. That obscured some improved levels for several other cargoes that are needed for construction and manufacturing.

Scrap loadings hit their highest level in five weeks, RMI data shows, while paper product volume was the best since April 4. The short lines hauled more carloads of stone, clay or aggregates – a key grouping for highway construction or other building jobs such as those starting up under the Recovery Act – than any week since March 14.

And in a sign that signs of life in construction are not just limited to highway paving, RMI contributors had their highest level of lumber and forest products hauls since Feb. 21. Those cargoes are usually linked to construction of new buildings or renovations
of existing ones.

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