Still no signs of recession in rail traffic. This week’s data came in at moderately healthy levels with carloads and intermodal traffic both posting low single digit results. The AAR has the details:
“The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported gains in weekly rail traffic, with U.S. railroads originating 298,465 carloads for the week ending Nov. 5, 2011, up 3.4 percent compared with the same week last year. Intermodal volume for the week totaled 239,180 trailers and containers, up 3.5 percent compared with the same week last year.
Fifteen of the 20 carload commodity groups posted increases compared with the same week in 2010, including: metallic ores, up 23.2 percent; nonmetallic minerals, up 23 percent, and metals and products, up 19.9 percent. The groups showing a decrease in weekly traffic included: farm products excluding grain down 17.8 percent; grain, down 11.4 percent, and primary forest products, down 10.5 percent.
Weekly carload volume on Eastern railroads was up 1.6 percent compared with the same week last year. In the West, weekly carload volume was up 4.5 percent compared with the same week in 2010.
For the first 44 weeks of 2011, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 12,843,242 carloads, up 1.8 percent from the same point last year, and 10,095,972 trailers and containers, up 5.2 percent from last year.”
Mr. Roche is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Discipline Funds.Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory firm with a focus on helping people be more disciplined with their finances.
He is also the author of Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Understand About Money and Finance, Understanding the Modern Monetary System and Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction.
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