The Association of American Railroads (AAR) has reported that total U.S. rail traffic for July 2016 was 2,027,768 carloads and intermodal units, down 7.9 percent or 174,012 carloads and intermodal units compared with July 2015.
July 2016 U.S. carload originations totaled 1,025,367, a drop of 8.8 percent, or 99,530 carloads, compared to July of last year. Excluding coal, carloads for the month were down 4 percent or 29,051 carloads compared to July 2015.
Intermodal traffic for July totaled 1,002,401 containers and trailers, down 74,482 units, or 6.9 percent, compared to last July.
Four of the 20 commodity categories tracked by the AAR each month saw increases last month compared with July of 2015. Commodities showing the largest increases included waste and nonferrous scrap, up 25.9 percent, or 3,400 carloads; grain, up 15.3 percent, or 12,641 carloads; and miscellaneous carloads, up 12.9 percent, or 2,880 carloads.
Petroleum and petroleum products showed the largest decrease in the commodity groups, with a drop of 22 percent, or 11,926 carloads, and coal declined 17.5 percent, or 70,479 carloads. Crushed stone, gravel and sand were down 11.6 percent, or 11,765 carloads.
"Rail traffic continues to reflect the uncertainty rail customers face in a challenging economic environment," said AAR Senior Vice President of Policy and Economics John T. Gray. "For the present, railroads are focused on providing safe and efficient service to their customers, while watching to see if the increase in consumer spending in the second quarter will lead to additional Gross Domestic Product growth in the second half of the year."
Gray also noted that rail intermodal remained off from 2015's record traffic level while carloads showed a small improvement in coal and a bit of an improvement in grain.
For the week ending July 30, 2016, a decrease of 4 percent was reported in total U.S. rail traffic compared with the same week in 2015. Carloads and intermodal units totaled 536,916.
For the week, there were 274,355 carloads, a drop of 5.3 percent compared with the same week in 2015, while U.S. weekly intermodal volume was 262,561 containers and trailers, down 2.6 percent compared to 2015.
Four of the 10 carload commodity groups that are tracked by the AAR posted increases compared with the same week in 2015. Miscellaneous carloads had the highest increase, up 16.7 percent, with a total 10,839 carloads; followed by grain, up 14.9 percent, with a total of 24,677 carloads; and chemicals, up 3.1 percent to 31,025 carloads.
Petroleum and petroleum products reported the largest decrease for the week compared to the same time period in 2015, with a total of 10,383 carloads, a drop of 25 percent. Coal was down by 12.2 percent to 90,330 carloads, and forest products decreased by 8.1 percent to 10,329 carloads.
On the 13 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads, combined North American rail volume for the week ending July 30, 2016, was 692,341 carloads and intermodal units, down 4.5 percent.