The Association of American Railroads (AAR) has reported that total U.S. rail traffic for October 2016 was 2,142,814 carloads and intermodal units, down 3.2 percent or 70,896 carloads and intermodal units compared with October 2015.
October 2016 U.S. carload originations totaled 1,066,994, a drop of 5.1 percent, or 57,800 carloads, compared to October of last year. Excluding coal, carloads for the month were down 3.8 percent or 28,179 carloads compared to October 2015.
Intermodal traffic for October totaled 1,075,820 containers and trailers, down 13,096 units, or 1.2 percent, compared to last October.
Four of the 20 commodity categories tracked by the AAR each month saw increases last month compared with October of 2015. Commodities showing the largest increases included waste and nonferrous scrap, up 9.9 percent, or 1,349 carloads; grain, up 6 percent, or 6,014 carloads; and miscellaneous carloads, up 2.2 percent, or 535 carloads.
Petroleum and petroleum products showed the largest decrease in the commodity groups, with a drop of 24 percent, or 12,849 carloads, and coal declined 7.6 percent, or 29,621 carloads. Chemicals were down 3.1 percent, or 3,660 carloads.
“Railroads continue to face a difficult macroeconomic environment that's negatively impacting their traffic volume,” said AAR Senior Vice President of Policy and Economics John T. Gray.
"Grain is doing well and autos are hanging on, but many other commodity categories that depend on a vibrant industrial sector — things like steel, petroleum products, and crushed stone — are not doing as well as railroads would like,” added Gray. “Hopefully that changes in the months ahead.”
For the week ending October 29, 2016, a decrease of 0.8 percent was reported in total U.S. rail traffic compared with the same week in 2015. Carloads and intermodal units totaled 544,997.
For the week, there were 271,576 carloads, a drop of 2.8 percent compared with the same week in 2015, while U.S. weekly intermodal volume was 273,421 containers and trailers, up 1.3 percent compared to 2015.
Five of the 10 carload commodity groups that are tracked by the AAR posted increases compared with the same week in 2015. Grain had the highest increase, up 3.8 percent, with a total 25,247 carloads.
Petroleum and petroleum products reported the largest decrease for the week compared to the same time period in 2015, with a total of 10,608, a drop of 17.6 percent.
On the 13 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads, combined North American rail volume for the week ending October 29, 2016, was 716,097 carloads and intermodal units, down 0.1 percent.
For the first 43 weeks of 2016, total U.S. rail traffic was down 6.6 percent, or 21,963,642 carloads and intermodal units, from the same time period in 2015. U.S. carloads totaled 10,804,210, a drop of 10 percent. Intermodal containers and trailers totaled 11,159,432 units, down 3 percent compared with the same period in 2015.
North American rail volume for the first 43 weeks of 2016 totaled 28,752,216, down 6.1 percent compared with 2015.