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For the week ending Sept. 8, 2012, U.S. railroads registered 272,301 carloads, down 2.3 percent, and 214,517 containers and trailers, up 3.1 percent compared with volumes from the same week last year, according to the Association of American Railroads.

Eleven of  20 carload commodity groups posted increases, led by petroleum products (64.2 percent), farm products excluding grain (61.4 percent), and crushed stone, sand and gravel (15.2 percent). Iron and steel scrap volume fell 21.8 percent, metallic ores loads dropped 16.7 percent, and waste and nonferrous scrap carloads declined 15.1 percent.

For the week ending Sept. 8, Canadian railroads reported 76,490 carloads, up 2 percent, and 49,687 containers and trailers, up 7.3 percent year over year. Mexican railroads' weekly carloads rose 5.1 percent to 14,471 units and intermodal volume climbed 5.8 percent to 10,553 units.

Through 2012's first 36 weeks, 13 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads originated 13,437,003 carloads, down 1.3 percent, and 10,629,353 containers and trailers, up 4.7 percent compared with the same 2011 period.

Meanwhile, RailAmerica Inc. reported August carloads totaling 74,813, up 2.9 percent compared with August 2011 volume. Motor vehicle shipments soared 54.4 percent to 1,467 units, petroleum volume jumped 29.5 percent to 3,496 units, "other" traffic climbed 29.4 percent to 3,849 units and forest products carloads rose 14.9 percent to 5,173 units.