Intermodal traffic on U.S. freight railroads rose 1.3 percent during the week ending October 21 compared with the same week last year, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported this week. Carload freight for the week was down 1.1 percent.

The AAR said that intermodal volume was 253,387 trailers of containers for the week, with container volume up 5.8 percent and trailer volume down 11.8 percent. And carload freight came in at 339,525 cars, with loading up 0.9 percent in the West and down 3.5 percent in the East.

Total volume for the week was estimated at 34.8 billion ton miles, which was up 0.3 percent from the same week in 2005.

Among individual carload commodities, carloads of coke were up 6.4 percent (to 5.961 carloads), coal was up 6.0 percent (to 146,859 carloads), and farm products other than grain were up 4.9 percent.

Only five of 19 individual carload commodities tracked by the AAR saw higher carloadings for the week ending October 21 than for the corresponding week in 2005.

Cumulative volume for the first 42 weeks of 2006 totaled 17,289,364 carloads-up 0.9 percent from last year. And trailers and containers at 11,864,955 represented a 5.9 percent increase from last year.