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6/8/2023
Last month, U.S. railroads logged 2,319,808 carloads and intermodal units, a 5.7% decrease compared with May 2022, according to Association of American Railroads data.
The decrease in total volume was due to negative intermodal trends, with railroads reporting 1,190,553 containers and trailers for the month — an 11.1% decrease year over year. However, carload volume for the period ticked up 0.8% to 1,129,255 units.
Nine of the 20 carload commodity categories that AAR tracks every month posted year-over-year gains in May. They included motor vehicles and parts, up 17%; crushed stone, sand and gravel, up 10.2%; and petroleum and petroleum products, up 9.4%.
Commodities that posted decreases last month included grain, down 12.2%; coal, -1.7%; and all other carloads, -9.8%.
"Roughly half of U.S. intermodal shipments are related to international trade, so what happens at ports is extremely important to railroads," said AAR Senior Vice President John Gray in a press release. "U.S. port volumes, especially on the West Coast, have already been trending down for months and are a major reason why rail intermodal volumes have been on the decline in 2023."
U.S. traffic for the first five months of 2023 totaled 4,938,897 carloads, a 0.7% increase, and 5,124,695 intermodal units, a 10.9% decrease, compared with volumes in the same period in 2022.