North American Rail Traffic Rose 5% in Week Ended Nov. 28
December 02 2020 - 2:19PM
Dow Jones News
By Colin Kellaher
North American rail traffic rose 5% last week, wrapping up a
month of gains, as railroads continued to make up ground lost to
the coronavirus pandemic, data from the Association of American
Railroads showed.
Carload volume rose 0.8% for the week ended Nov. 28 on 12
reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads, while intermodal
traffic rose 9.2%, the trade group said Wednesday.
In the week ended Nov. 21, North American rail traffic rose
5.2%. For the first 48 weeks of the year, North American traffic is
now down 7.7%, compared with a year-to-date decline of 7.9%
reported a week earlier.
The AAR said U.S. rail traffic rose 3.7% last week, as an 11.2%
rise in the volume of intermodal containers and trailers more than
offset a 4.1% drop in carloads.
"Excluding coal, total U.S. rail carloads are now very close to
where they were before the pandemic hit, with grain volumes
approaching record highs due to soybean exports," said John Gray,
AAR senior vice president.
U.S. intermodal volumes, meanwhile, have seen near-record highs
in the past couple of months due to both import volumes and online
shopping by consumers, he added.
U.S. rail traffic is now down 8.3% for the year to date, the AAR
said, compared with a decline of 8.5% reported a week ago.
Canadian rail traffic jumped 12.5% last week, with carloads
surging 15.5% amid strong increases in shipments of grain and
chemicals. Intermodal volume rose 9.4%.
Canadian rail traffic is down 4.9% for the first 48 weeks of the
year.
Mexican rail traffic fell again last week, as blockades by
protesters continued to disrupt the industry. Traffic was down
7.8%, as a 17.8% drop in intermodal units more than offset a 0.7%
rise in carloads.
Teachers who have been blocking train tracks in Michoacan for
nearly two months this week agreed to end their protests after the
federal government said it would meet with them to discuss their
demands, according to several published reports. The protests have
blocked rail lines from Mexico's Port of Lazaro Cardenas, stranding
thousands of containers.
Mexican rail traffic is down 10.2% for the year so far, the AAR
said.
Write to Colin Kellaher at colin.kellaher@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 02, 2020 14:04 ET (19:04 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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