Archives

Visitor Counter

322656
Visit Today : 127
Visit Yesterday : 165
This Month : 1669
This Year : 9959
Total Visit : 322656
Hits Today : 150
Total Hits : 1071683
Who's Online : 3
Your IP Address: 18.208.197.243
Server Time: 24-03-29

Rail Traffic Lower As Carloads Of Coal,Petroleum & Metals Are Down

October 15,2015-

Coal Loses Favor: Chart shows rail carload of coal by year

Screen Shot 2015-10-15 at 7.27.53 AM
Rail operators like BNSF are looking for more business with its  paycheck commodity coal – down 12 % from last year and down 20% from five years ago. Historically there is no more important commodity shipped by rail than coal, in 2013 accounting for 40% of rail tonnage and one fifth of the jobs working on the railroad.
That is all changing with utilities shunning coal to burn for power generation in favor of  cleaner burning and cheap natural gas shipped by pipeline.
The US is not the only one. In China where coal has been a mainstay suffers an ugly haze hanging over many Chinese cities. Here too,coal use is down.Screen Shot 2015-10-15 at 7.50.49 AM
The world is focusing on climate change and coal is considered a big problem.
But that is not the only commodity that is impacting the rail fright business. Both shipments of metal as well as petroleum with those the low prices pounding the oil patch are pushing overall freight volume lower.
That has rail operators looking for business says Bloomberg looking to snatch freight shipped by big rig currently across country.
The latest snapshot of rail traffic reported by the Association of American Railroads shows overall U.S. rail traffic  so far this month was 556,233 carloads and intermodal units, down 2.8 percent compared with the same week last year.
Total carloads for the week ending Oct. 10 were 281,073 carloads, down 5.8 percent compared with the same week in 2014, while U.S. weekly intermodal volume was 275,160 containers and trailers, up 0.5 percent compared to 2014.
Five of the 10 carload commodity groups posted an increase compared with the same week in 2014. They include: miscellaneous carloads, up 24.4 percent to 10,256; grain, up 21.3 percent to 24,818 carloads; and motor vehicles and parts, up 2 percent to 17,846.
Lower Volume
Commodity groups that posted decreases compared with the same week in 2014 included: metallic ores and metals, down 23.5 percent to 20,084 carloads; petroleum and petroleum products, down 16.6 percent to 13,621 carloads; and coal, down 12.6 percent to 98,637 carloads.
For the first 40 weeks of 2015, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 11,161,759 carloads, down 4.4 percent from the same point last year; and 10,692,427 intermodal units, up 2.4 percent from last year. Total combined U.S. traffic for the first 40 weeks of 2015 was 21,854,186 carloads and intermodal units, a decrease of 1.2 percent compared to last year.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *