AAR reports carload and intermodal declines for week ending January 23

Both railroad carload and intermodal volumes saw annual declines for the week ending January 23, according to data issued this week by the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

Carloads fell considerably, falling 19.5 percent annually to 237,190. This was below the week ending January 16 at 242,679 and of the week ending January 9 at 239,221.

Only one of the ten carload commodities tracked by the AAR saw annual gains, with miscellaneous carloads up 21.4 percent to 9,018. Coal continued its steep declines, down 35.8 percent at 74,128, and petroleum and petroleum products off 19 percent to 12,409.

Intermodal containers and trailers were down 0.1 percent annually at 253,134, which is below the weeks ending January 16 and January 9 at 263,763 and 258,939, respectively.

The AAR said that for the first three weeks of 2016 total cumulative rail carload and intermodal volume was down 7.6 percent at 1,494,917 carloads and intermodal units.