Rail Traffic Still Consistent with a Modest Expansion
This week’s rail data conflicts with some recent reports from some major transport firms like Norfolk Southern and FedEx who both said end demand was softening. AAR reported a decline in carloads at -2.9%, but an increase in intermodal at 3.9%. We tend to favor intermodal as it has a better track record of forecasting expansion/contraction in the economy. The updated 10 week moving average dropped slightly to 4.8%, but remains near its highest levels of the year. The AAR has more details:
“The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported mixed weekly rail traffic for the week ending September 15, 2012, with U.S. railroads originating 291,530 carloads, down 2.9 percent compared with the same week last year. Intermodal volume for the week totaled 251,720 trailers and containers, up 3.9 percent compared with the same week last year.
Nine of the 20 carload commodity groups posted increases compared with the same week in 2011, with petroleum products, up 46.3 percent; crushed stone, sand and gravel, up 10.8, and food and kindred products, up 10.3 percent. The groups showing a decrease in weekly traffic included farm products excluding grain, down 22.7 percent; metallic ores, down 21.3 percent, and waste and nonferrous scrap, down 19.5 percent.
Weekly carload volume on Eastern railroads was down 5.3 percent compared with the same week last year. In the West, weekly carload volume was down 1.4 percent compared with the same week in 2011.
For the first 37 weeks of 2012, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 10,454,518 carloads, down 2.4 percent from the same point last year, and 8,693,030 trailers and containers, up 3.7 percent from last year.”
Cullen Roche
Mr. Roche is the Founder of Orcam Financial Group, LLC. Orcam is a financial services firm offering research, private advisory, institutional consulting and educational services.
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10 Comments
What’s up with the chart, still showing positive yoy% change?
Intermodal is still positive….
Nevermind, misread the numbers
How do you weigh this against the recent Fed Ex data?
This data, being more regularly released, is more reliable in my opinion. The 12 week moving average gives us a really good idea of trend growth whereas the FDX data is quarterly and tends to be more volatile. So I favor the rail data.
Do you want to have a stab at why the downward coal trend reversed a few months ago? (Wish we could post images here I’d show you what I mean)
Cullen, do you pay attention to the BTS Transportation Services Index? It’s only monthly though.
I don’t follow it. Is it good?
http://www.bts.gov/xml/tsi/src/index.xml
Don’t know if it is good, but I like it as a simple snapshot in one graph, of broad-based transport. (Use it along with Trannies, truck indicators etc.) They have separate indices for transport and passenger, which was interesting, as there was a neat divergence in 07.
From the FAQ:
What areas of transportation are covered by the index?
The freight transportation index consists of:
- for-hire trucking (parcel services are not included),
- freight railroad services (including rail-based intermodal shipments such as containers on flat cars),
inland waterway traffic,
- pipeline movements (including principally petroleum and petroleum products and natural gas), and
air freight.
The index does not include international or coastal steamship movements, private trucking, courier services, or the United States Postal Service.
The passenger transportation index consists of:
- local mass transit,
- intercity passenger rail, and
- passenger air transportation.
Thanks for the details JT. I’ll have to look into it some more.