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For the week ending July 21, U.S. railroads originated 286,254 carloads, down 1.9 percent, and 246,475 containers and trailers, up 6.2 percent compared with volumes from the same week last year, according to the Association of American Railroads.
 
Only seven of 20 carload commodity groups posted gains, led by petroleum products (50.1 percent), food and kindred products (13.8 percent), and coke (10.6 percent). Iron and steel scrap traffic fell 24.2 percent, grain volume dropped 16.9 percent, and waste and nonferrous scrap carloads declined 12.3 percent.
 
Canadian railroads reported weekly carloads totaling 76,385, up 2.8 percent, and intermodal volume totaling 53,203 units, up 6.9 percent year over year. For the week ending July 21, Mexican railroads’ carloads inched up 0.5 percent to 15,470 units and intermodal volume rose 8.4 percent to 10,433 units.
 
Through 2012’s first 29 weeks, 13 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads originated 10,771,331 carloads, down 1.4 percent, and 8,480,946 containers and trailers, up 4.6 percent compared with volumes from the same 2011 period.