Grain Traffic Bright Spot for U.S. Railroads

The Association of American Railroads said that grain traffic by rail this year has been surpassing carload numbers from 2015, with grain carloads up by more than 26 percent to 22,599 carloads.

This equates to more than 250 90-car unit grain trains per week.

AAR said the first two weeks of September have yielded higher volumes of grain shipments and that during August grain traffic averaged about 25 percent higher than during the same month last year.

Grain is one of the few commodity groups in which the AAR has been posting substantial traffic increases. Coal and energy-related commodities continue to tumble.

Overall U.S. rail traffic is down more than 5 percent in 2016 when compared to 2015.

Tags: AAR freight statistics, Association of American Railroads, rail freight traffic, Railroad coal traffic, railroad freight traffic, railroad grain traffic, U.S. Rail Freight Traffic