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In April, U.S. railroads registered a 15.8 percent increase in carloads compared with April 2009 volume, according to the Association of American Railroads’ (AAR) Rail Time Indicators report for May. All 19 major commodity categories tracked by the AAR posted gains — a first since the association launched its data series in 1989.

Primary metal products traffic shot up 90.5 percent while coal volume increased 7.1 percent, the first monthly coal traffic gain since December 2008. Meanwhile, U.S. roads’ intermodal traffic jumped 14.3 percent in April.

“Last month’s favorable results come with a footnote that April 2009 was a particularly bad month for rail traffic,” said AAR Senior Vice President John Gray in a prepared statement. "That said, rail traffic last month suggests the early phase of a broad-based recovery is under way.”

On a seasonally adjusted basis, U.S. carloads rose 0.5 percent and intermodal traffic increased 1 percent from March levels.