(The following story by John D. Boyd appeared on The Journal of Commerce website on January 8, 2010.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The 2009 plunge in bulk U.S. railcar shipments, which count hauls of commodities and equipment carried in large freight cars, took cargo volume to its lowest level since 1989, said the Association of American Railroads.
The five U.S. Class I railroads, plus a few regional lines that report to AAR, ended 2009 with just over 13,812,989 carloads, which was down 16.1 percent from 2008 for a single-year decline of more than 2.6 million shipments.
But to get at the relative change in rail cargo hauls from many years past requires calculating for changing car sizes. Over the years, railroads have deployed larger railcars and adjusted their equipment mix so that average capacity of cars in operation has greatly increased.
For instance, AAR says average freight car capacity was 59.7 tons in 1965, but rose to 88.2 tons by 1990 and was 100.5 in 2008.
When measured for average capacity changes, the 13.8 million carloads in 2009 would be the lowest since an adjusted level in 1989 of 13,664,142 carloads, and would be slightly below 1990’s adjusted 13,820,941, an AAR spokeswoman said.