U.S. rail carload and intermodal volumes are mixed in November, reports AAR

United States rail carload and intermodal volumes, for the month of November, were mixed, according to data issued this week by the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

Rail carloads—at 917,787—increased 2%, or 17,996 carloads, annually. When removing coal from the tally, November carloads were down by 2,735, or 0.4% annually, and when removing coal and grain, they were down 5,166 carloads, or 0.9%.

AAR said that 12 of the 20 carload commodity groups it tracks were up annually, including: coal, up 20,731 carloads or 8.6 percent; chemicals, up 5,563 carloads or 4.4 percent; and crushed stone, sand & gravel, up 5,067 carloads or 7.4 percent. Commodities with annual declines in November included: motor vehicles & parts, down 8,186 carloads or 14.1 percent; grain, down 7,901 carloads or 7.4 percent; and all other carloads, down 3,355 carloads or 14.6 percent.

Intermodal containers and trailers—at 1,028,039—were off 9.6%, or 108,705 units, compared to November 2020.

AAR said that combined U.S. carload and intermodal volume originations—at 1,945,826—were down 4.5%, or 90,709 units, annually.

“Fifteen of the 20 carload categories we track have seen year-to-date carload increases on U.S. railroads through November,” said AAR Senior Vice President John T. Gray in a statement. “Coal leads the way, with carloads up more than 11%, or nearly 306,000 carloads, mainly because the price of natural gas to electricity generators has doubled since the beginning of the year. Chemicals, grain and commodities related to steelmaking have also all showed solid carload growth this year.” 

On a year-to-date basis through November, AAR reported that U.S. rail carloads—at 10,874,439—increased 7%, or 710,728 carloads, and intermodal units—at 12,917,662—are up 6.4%, or 775,257 containers and trailers.

For the week ending November 27, U.S. rail carloads—at 209,091—are up 1.6% annually, trailing the weeks ending November 20 and November 13, at 237,244 and 235,867, respectively. Intermodal units—at 221,702—fell 10.1%, trailing the weeks ending November 20 and November 13, at 271,065 and 266,746, respectively.

AAR President and CEO Ian Jefferies said at the recent RailTrends conference in New York hosted by Progressive Railroading magazine and independent railroad analyst Anthony Hatch that things are getting back to equilibrium and hopefully can crank up the economy a little bit more.

“There has been a pretty significant decline in auto movements on rail due to the semiconductor shortage,” he said. Overall, I think the industry is performing at a solid level, there are opportunities to grow more and grow intermodal and pull more trucks off of the highway.”