Rail Traffic – Still Telling a Mixed Story
Rail traffic was mixed again this week although intermodal continues to point to a growing economy. Carloads were down 1% on a year over year basis while intermodal jumped 5.6%. This brings the 10 week moving average to 4.5% which is a healthy historical figure. AAR has the details on this week’s data:
“The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported mixed weekly rail traffic for the week ending July 7, 2012, with U.S. railroads originating 243,156 carloads, down 1 percent compared with the same week last year. Intermodal volume for the week totaled 203,362 trailers and containers, up 5.6 percent compared with the same week last year.
Seven of the 20 carload commodity groups posted increases compared with the same week in 2011, with petroleum products, up 54.8 percent; motor vehicles and equipment, up 52.7 percent, and food and kindred products, up 11.1 percent. The groups showing a decrease in weekly traffic included iron and steel scrap, down 29.6 percent; primary forest products, down 24.1 percent, and farm products excluding grain, down 23.6 percent.
Weekly carload volume on Eastern railroads was down 12.3 percent compared with the same week last year. In the West, weekly carload volume was up 5.3 percent compared with the same week in 2011.
For the first 27 weeks of 2012, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 7,567,974 carloads, down 2.8 percent from the same point last year, and 6,253,092 trailers and containers, up 3.4 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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Finished goods up significantly; unfinished and commodities – down. Petroleum products might be separate matter as it related to mid-western production/transportation issues.
So, (if we add to it some statistics from the LA port), to me it looks like the finished goods from the spring spike in manufacturing activity are getting transported now, but the goods for new production are not, as there is little demand for them.
Other explanations would be welcome.