Actually, says AAR senior vice president John T. Gray, the declines are probably the steepest ever, but since the organization has no records for earlier periods, it's impossible to be certain. Nonetheless, he continues, "This is obviously a very difficult period. Railroads join with everyone else in hoping that this economic downturn changes course sooner rather than later."

Only two of the 19 major commodity categories tracked by the AAR saw carload increases compared to last November. Coal carloads were up 2.1% to 12,271 carloads, while the "all other carloads" category was up 23.1% to 3,949 carloads. Metal products showed the steepest decline at 39.6%, followed by motor vehicles and equipment at 32.7%, grain at 16.6% and chemicals at 16.3%.

For the first 11 months of 2008, total US rail volume was down 1.4% to 15.5 million carloads. US intermodal traffic, which is not included in carload figures, was down 3.5% to 10.77 million trailers and containers for the same period. Total volume was estimated at 1.62 trillion ton-miles, down 0.3% from the first 11 months of 2007.

Meanwhile, Canadian rail carload traffic (including the US operations of Canadian railroads) was down 12.3% in November to 281,416 carloads and down 5.4 percent% for the year to date to 3.55 million carloads. Carloads carried on Kansas City Southern dé Mexico, a major Mexican railroad, were down 17.7% to 37,347 carloads, while intermodal totals were down 2.5% to 21,547 units. For the year to date, KCSM volume was down 7.1% to 487,874 carloads, while intermodal units were up 8.1% to 244,109 trailers and containers.

Instant Insights /

Railroads Show Sharp Freight Declines in November

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