(The following story by John D. Boyd appeared on The Journal of Commerce website on January 14, 2010.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Small railroads across North America started 2010 with traffic near the levels of mid-December but below the recent November peaks, according to the RMI RailConnect index of short lines and regional carriers.
RMI said 336 reporting railroads – or more than half the estimated 550 short lines in the U.S. and Canada – picked up 82,306 shipments in the week ending Jan. 9.
That is 9.3 percent below their volume in the same week last year, which was when rail volumes were in the middle of a long decline that continued well into the spring.
The latest week’s volume was higher than the two weeks before, each of which had some business-reducing holiday effects.
It was down from 84,867 in the Dec. 19 week, and nearly even with the 82,289 loads the RMI lines originated the week of Dec. 12.
Yet it is also lower than any of the non-holiday weeks from November, and marked the eighth straight week that short line traffic has been below the recent peak of 89,934 loads in the Nov. 14 week.
One bright spot among cargoes, and running counter to the slowed trend since autumn, is that RMI-reporting lines last week picked up 15,635 carloads of chemicals. That is the largest category for short lines, and the week’s volume was second only in recent months to the 15,661 chemical loadings for the Dec. 5 period.
Chemicals demand is also a leading sign of factory activity, since manufacturers need chemicals both as raw materials for some goods and to create packaging for other products.