U.S. Carloadings Continued to Drop in July

The July 2015 U.S. rail traffic picture mirrored that of other months of the years with total carloads down, but with intermodal showing an increase over the same period in 2014.

The Association of American Railroads reported this week that for the first seven months of 2015, U.S. railroads carried 16,243,896 carloads and intermodal units, a 1 percent drop from the same point in 2014.

Through July, U.S. railroads logged 8,306,979 carloads, a drop of 4.2 percent compared with a the same period in 2014. Intermodal traffic, though, was 7,936,917 containers and trailers, a 2.5 percent increase.

“Railroads are overexposed, relative to the economy in general, to the energy sector. Put another way, changes in the energy sector are having a bigger effect on rail traffic than they are on the economy as a whole,” said AAR Senior Vice President Policy and Economics John Gray in a statement. “For that reason, we don’t think declines in overall rail carloads in recent months are necessarily reflective of fundamental weakness in the broader economy.”
For the month of July 2015, U.S. carload traffic totaled 1,376,411 carloads, down 6.5 percent compared with July 2014.

U.S. railroads originated 1,331,888 containers and trailers in July 2015, up 3.5 percent or 45,538 units from the same month last year

For July 2015, combined U.S. carload and intermodal originations were 2,708,299, down 1.8 percent or 49,757 carloads and intermodal units from July 2014.

Excluding coal, carloads were down 2.8 percent for July 2015 compared with a year ago.

Tags: AAR freight statistics, Association of American Railroads