U.S., Canadian rail traffic jumped up in June's first week

For the week ending June 7, U.S. railroads reported 292,924 carloads, up 5.3 percent, and 269,823 intermodal units, up 6.8 percent compared with volumes from the same week last year, according to the Association of American Railroads.

Total combined U.S. traffic rose 6 percent to 562,747 units, with nine of 10 carload commodity groups posting increases. Grain volume climbed 15.5 percent, nonmetallic minerals and products traffic jumped 12.2 percent, and motor vehicles and parts volume rose 8.9 percent.

Through the year's first 23 weeks, U.S. railroads logged 6,563,563 carloads, up 3.2 percent, and 5,834,878 intermodal units, up 5.8 percent year over year.

For the week ending June 7, Canadian railroads' carloads increased 6 percent to 82,450 units and their intermodal volume jumped 11.4 percent to 59,796 units, while Mexican railroads' carloads declined 3 percent to 16,030 units and their intermodal volume rose 4.3 percent to 10,878 units.

Through 23 weeks, 13 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads handled 8,691,572 carloads, up 2.1 percent, and 7,330,252 containers and trailers, up 5.7 percent compared with the same 2013 period.