Freight traffic volumes on United States railroads was a mixed bag for the week ending October 27 compared to the same week last year, according to data released by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) yesterday.
Weekly trailer and container volume totaled 240,657 trailers or containers, which was down 4.4 percent from the corresponding week in 2006. Container volume was down 3.4 percent, and trailer volume was down 7.8 percent.
The AAR said that total volume for the week was estimated at 36.0 billion ton-miles, which was up 2.3 percent compared to the corresponding week last year.
And carload freight, which does not include intermodal data, came in at 341,396 cars for the week, which up 0.8 percent from last year, said the AAR. Carload loadings were up 2.5 percent in the West and down 1.4 percent in the East.
Of the 19 carload commodity groups tracked by the AAR, 10 were down from last year, with farm products down 17.6 percent and lumber and wood products down 15.1 percent. Grain was up 15.9 percent, and non-metallic minerals were up 5.1 percent.
The AAR said that cumulative volume for the first 43 weeks of 2007 totaled 14,056,298 carloads, which was down 3.0 percent from 2006. Trailers or containers were down 2.1 percent at 9,993,400 and the total volume of an estimated 1.45 trillion ton-miles was down 1.5 percent year over year. |
