Weekly US Rail Freight Down 14% From Year Ago

Freight traffic across North America slumped 13.9% in the week ended 21 March from the same week a year ago, including a 14% drop in US rail freight, as the recession hits industry shipments.

For the first 11 weeks of the year, North American rail freight was off 16% to 3.8 million carloads from a year ago, the Association of American Railroads said in a report.

Intermodal volume, freight loaded into a container or truck trailer and then transported by train, dropped 14.9% in North America from the first 11 weeks of 2008, the group said.

US rail carloads fell 1.2% from the previous week to 276,030 cars from 279,287 carloads the week before, the report said.

Freight transported in trailers or containers on US railways for the week ended 21 March was off 12.9% from a year ago to 183,795 trailers or containers, the association said. Container volume dipped 7.7% while trailer volume plummeted 30.9% from a year ago.

US carloads of all commodities the association tracks, except the miscellaneous category of "all other carloads," fell during the 21 March week from the same period a year ago, the report said.

The miscellaneous commodity group managed a 17.4% gain from a year ago. Declines ranged from 3.9% for coal to 57.1% for metals and metallic ores.

US freight transportation for 2009 has reached an estimated 319.2 billion ton-miles, down 14.4% from the total at this time a year earlier, the report said.

The ton-mile is a unit used by the association and represents one ton of freight hauled one mile.

By Jasmin Melvin, Reuters.