US Rails Set Second Container Count Record

With intermodal traffic building toward its autumn peak, major U.S. railroads set a new all-time high in container hauls for the second straight week, said the Association of American Railroads.

The AAR said large U.S.-owned carriers originated 206,535 intermodal container loadings for the week ending Sept. 25, up from the previous record of 205,532 a week earlier. They picked up 34,632 trailer shipments in the latest week, slightly above the 34,481 for the Sept. 18 week.

In all, their latest intermodal loadings of 241,167 units were up 17.3 percent from the same week of 2009 - a time when rail traffic was climbing up from the recession lows hit the previous spring. But the AAR said while Sept. 25 weekly intermodal traffic is the highest so far this year it still trails the 2008 week by 2.1 percent.

By The Numbers: U.S. Intermodal Shipments.

Counting Canadian and Mexican rail lines - including U.S. operations of Canadian-owned carriers - major North American railroads hauled 300,350 intermodal containers and trailers in the latest week, up from 299,305 in the Sept. 18 week and 16.7 percent above a year earlier.

The strength of intermodal traffic has surprised some analysts, who had expected volume to slow down some after import container shipments spiked in the summer. But industry sources say international intermodal flows continued at a strong pace in September, while domestic intermodal continues to grow in competition with long-haul trucking.

The domestic container business is so strong that Greenbrier Companies has reported two strong recent rounds of orders to build new well cars to carry the jumbo 53-foot domestic containers, and to refurbish some older well cars to stretch them to 53-footers.

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