AAR: Crude oil a big traffic story for 2012, mixed results the same old traffic story for latest week

Crude oil traffic more than doubled for U.S. railroads last year, reaching a new all-time high, according to data released yesterday by the Association of American Railroads (AAR). The roads originated a record 233,811 carloads of crude, up 256 percent compared with 2011.

Crude shipments represented 0.8 percent of all U.S. Class I carloads, up from 2011's 0.2 percent.

The AAR also reported mixed U.S. traffic results for the week ending Feb. 16. Carloads dipped 1.2 percent to 278,596 units while intermodal volume climbed 13.6 percent to 251,078 units compared with traffic from the same week last year. Total U.S. traffic rose 5.3 percent to 529,674 carloads.

Only three of 10 carload commodity groups posted gains, led by petroleum products (56.1 percent), and nonmetallic minerals and products (12.1 percent). Grain traffic fell 14.3 percent and coal volume dropped 4 percent.

Elevated inventories and weaker export trends remain headwinds to coal traffic, said Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc. analysts in their weekly "Rail Flash" report. But absolute coal volumes have improved sequentially over the past three weeks into easing comparisons, they said.

Current Energy Information Administration (EIA) projections show Eastern coal production will drop 5 percent, with second-half trends expected to exceed the first half as comparisons ease and inventories normalize, Baird analysts said. In the West, the EIA estimates 2013 coal production to increase 2 percent, they added.

Meanwhile, Canadian railroads reported weekly carloads totaling 79,336, up 1.5 percent and intermodal units totaling 53,927, up 5.7 percent year over year. For the week ending Feb. 16, Mexican railroads reported an 11.5 percent rise in carloads to 15,919 units and a 1.3 percent gain in intermodal volume to 10,601 units.

Through 2013's first seven weeks, 13 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads handled 2,521,998 carloads, down 3.2 percent, and 2,083,670 containers and trailers, up 6.1 percent compared with the same 2012 period.

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