U.S. rail traffic up 10 percent in Week 11

U.S. railroads managed a busy week of traffic ending March 17, with carloads up 7.5 percent to 263,352 units and intermodal volume up 12.7 percent to 273,986 trailers and containers compared with the same week a year ago.

For the week, U.S. rail traffic grew 10 percent to 537,338 carloads and intermodal units compared with volume in the same week in 2017, according to the Association of American Railroads' (AAR) data.

All 10 carload commodity groups that AAR tracks on a weekly basis posted increases during the week compared with the year-ago period. They included coal, up 8,750 carloads to 85,939; nonmetallic minerals, up 3,445 carloads to 35,240; and metallic ores and metals, up 2,310 carloads to 22,421.

Also during the week, Canadian railroads logged 79,314 carloads, down 2.6 percent, and 68,715 intermodal units, up 14.5 percent compared with the same week in 2017.

Mexican railroads reported 21,648 carloads for the week, down 3.4 percent compared with the same week last year, and 17,889 intermodal units, down 0.3 percent.

For the first 11 weeks of 2018 compared with the year-ago period:
• U.S. railroads' traffic climbed 2.7 percent to 5,731,308 carloads and intermodal units;
• Canadian railroads' traffic rose 2 percent to 1,559,089 carloads, containers and trailers; and
• Mexican railroads' traffic dipped 0.5 percent to 421,736 carloads and intermodal containers and trailers.