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The good news: U.S. railroads in 2010 increased carloads 7.3 percent to 14.8 million units and boosted intermodal volume 14.2 percent to 11.3 million units compared with 2009 figures — the largest year-over-year gains since the Association of American Railroads (AAR) launched a traffic data series in 1988, according to the AAR’s latest “Rail Time Indicators” report. The bad news: the annual carload total was the second-lowest on record, trailing only recession-plagued 2009.

All 19 commodity categories tracked by the AAR registered increases last year vs. 2009, but declined vs. 2008 figures. The categories that posted the largest gains: metallic ores, up 89.2 percent; metals and metal products, up 44.9 percent; and chemicals, up 9.6 percent.

Coal accounted for 45.4 percent of U.S. carload traffic in 2010, down from an all-time-high 48.2 percent in 2009. In the intermodal sector, containers accounted for a record-high 84.9 percent of U.S. intermodal traffic, up from 2009’s 83.4 percent.

“Like the economy in general, rail traffic in 2010 recovered some lost ground, but not nearly all of it,” said AAR Senior Vice President John Gray in a prepared statement. “That being said, monthly rail traffic increases were broad based, supporting the idea that economic recovery likewise is broad based.”

Railroads continued to bring rail cars out of storage last year, returning 132,284 cars to their fleets, the report states. As of Jan. 1, 316,271 cars remained in storage, representing about 20.8 percent of the North American rail-car fleet.

Meanwhile, Rail Time Indicators shows that in December, U.S. rail carloads rose 9.4 percent and intermodal volume climbed 13.3 percent year over year. Per seasonally adjusted data, carloads increased 1.9 percent and intermodal traffic inched up 0.3 percent compared with November figures.