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It wasn't by a big margin, but U.S. railroads posted a carload gain last week. For the week ending March 16, U.S. carloads ratcheted up 0.5 percent to 280,624 units and intermodal volume inched up 0.7 percent to 228,806 units compared with volumes from the same week last year, according to the Association of American Railroads.

Five of 10 carload commodity groups registered increases, led by petroleum products (58.3 percent), and motor vehicles and parts (15.6 percent). Grain traffic tumbled 19.2 percent.

For the week ending March 16, Canadian railroads reported 79,664 carloads, up 2 percent, and 49,896 intermodal units, up 8.1 percent year over year. Mexican railroads' weekly carloads rose 8.7 percent to 15,955 units, but their intermodal volume fell 10 percent to 8,583 units.

Through 2013's first 11 weeks, 13 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads handled 4,021,514 carloads, down 1.7 percent, and 3,281,456 containers and trailers, up 6.5 percent compared with the same 2012 period.