(The following appeared on the Progressive Railroading website on May 12, 2011.)
Last month, Genesee & Wyoming Inc.’s (GWI) subsidiary railroads handled 82,190 carloads, up 12.3 percent compared with April 2010 volume.
Excluding 5,925 carloads from Australia’s FreightLink, which GWI acquired in December, same-railroad traffic in April rose 4.2 percent. The volume gain was driven by an 11.9 percent increase in pulp and paper carloads, primarily in the Southern Region, and 11.3 percent climb in coal and coke carloads, primarily in the Illinois Region. In addition, chemicals and plastics traffic rose 8.4 percent, farm and food products traffic increased 5 percent, and petroleum products traffic went up 3.8 percent.
Full story: Progressive Railroading