Rail Ton-Mileage Sets Ninth Consecutive Annual Record

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Rail Ton-Mileage Sets Ninth Consecutive Annual Record

WASHINGTON, December 28, 2006 — For the ninth consecutive year, total freight volume on U.S. railroads as measured in ton-miles has set an annual record, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported today.

Total volume for the first 51 weeks of 2006 reached 1.712 trillion ton-miles during the week ended December 23, breaking the 52-week record of 1.696 trillion set during 2005. This year’s total was 2.6 percent above the total for the first 51 weeks of 2005.

For just the week ended December 23, total volume was estimated at 34.8 billion ton-miles, up 8.1 percent from last year.

Both carload and intermodal volume were also up from last year during the week ended December 23. Carload volume of 338,013 cars was up 6.6 percent from a year ago, with loadings up 8.6 percent in the West and 4.2 percent in the East. Intermodal volume of 233,890 trailers or containers was up 5.5 percent from last year. Container volume was up 10.1 percent, while trailer volume was down 7.5 percent.

Twelve out of 19 carload commodity groups were up from last year, with loadings of coke up 19.0 percent, grain up 17.0 percent and coal up 8.6 percent. On the downside, lumber and wood products were down 18.7 percent and pulp, paper and allied products were off 6.4 percent.

For the first 51 weeks of 2006, carload freight totaled 17,111,268 units, up 1.4 percent from last year, while intermodal volume totaled 12,109,230 trailers or containers, up 5.2 percent.

On Canadian railroads, during the week ended December 23 carload traffic totaled 73,098 cars, down 0.8 percent from last year while intermodal volume of 45,454 trailers or containers was up 6.7 percent from last year.

Cumulative originations for the first 51 weeks of 2006 on the Canadian railroads totaled 3,790,431 carloads, down 1.8 percent from last year, and 2,326,260 trailers and containers, up 5.1

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I can remember doing a high-school term paper on railroads when (I think it was 1966) they had recently broken a relatively long-standing record by hauling 750 billion ton-miles. Now they’re talking over twice as much, and on considerably less trackage, and with employee ranks even more drastically reduced.

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This information, coupled with the link on declining truck loads, implies that railroads are picking up the slack from trucks.

Does that mean the trucks took the biggest hit from slow downs in the auto industry?

Or that RR’s are actually being competitive across the board with trucks?

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I wouldn’t say that it is necessarily the case that trains are picking up the decline in truck traffic, although that could be the situation in particular commodities.

In the areas where rail traffic has declined (i.e. lumber), I think that the economy has declined for those industries. In the areas where rail traffic has increased, I suspect that truck wasn’t much of a factor anyway. So the increase isn’t that traffic has moved from truck to rail, but that some major industries are doing well, and it just happens that those industries ship by rail.

Overall, the increase is rail traffic is only 2% over last year, not really much of an increase at all.

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If 300 million tons of PRB coal moves an average of 1,000 miles, that would be about 20% of US ton miles. The railroads must be glad the coal is in Wyoming and the people are elsewhere.

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I don’t have figures for the average rail haul of PRB coal – it could be developed but would be a rather unpleasant accountancy project. You might be correct that an average haul is 1,000 miles, though there is a large amount that doesn’t move more than 600 miles.

At any rate you’ve touched on the key fact that drove the relative growth of western railroads after World War II, which is that long spans between points of origin and points of consumption erect a substantial barrier to trucking, while the points of consumption grew rapidly and demanded large inputs of material. But you don’t want it to be too big a span or it becomes cheaper to create a supply at the point of consumption. The cost of railroad transportation has to be high enough to afford investment in the railroad, low enough to keep out trucking, low enough to discourage source relocation or material substitution, and low enough to encourage growth in consumption. It’s a very narrow window.

Western coal has been a gift of collossal value to U.S. railroading. Historically there is no precedent for this phenomenon of hauling immense quantities of anything long distances overland. Coal hauls by rail normally had an absolute upper end of 350 miles. I don’t think we really appreciate what we are witness to, whether we are professionals or outsiders. A century from now people will wish they had been able to see this and will be baffled that we mostly just take it as dull business. And consider that 35 years ago the business was virtually zero!

By the way,annual growth rate in ton-miles is only 2-3% that’s nothing to scoff at. That 2-3% requires a big investment to meet – and keeps me employed!

S. Hadid

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Here is a thought.A lot of trucking companies had adds when JB started running by rail. All were " we wont EVER ship our trailers on a train" well I have seen all but a few on our rails now. England even started an intermodal division for some of its reefers.

Lumber always drops this time of year However it started dropping sooner when the housing market started falling which is typical. The economy is cyclical and you must have a down turn every now and then. Now whether said down turn is a bump and returns to grow or a spiral out of control is up to the consumers.

Coal has a longer travel from the mines than just 600 miles. The majority of the coal loads on our line are going beyond Chicago to MI,OH PA etc etc.So thats over 1000 miles from the mine and on into lines on NS and CSX. The distance also causes a problem in getting the unit sets back to the mines quickly. Loads are restricted to 50 and mtys 55 ( on BNSF anyway) so they are not slow but not exactly a priority to get moved(until the feds start scream then they are HOT)

Rail shipping is growing pretty quicly what with better service ( debatable but still) and a lower fuel cost passed off. Also trucking companies can send trailers to areas where its a pain to get OTR guys to go ie the Northeast.Let drayage drivers move them to where they are going then back to the intermodal yard with either a load or to be sent where their is a load and your not paying for wear and tear on your equipment nor fuel nor a driver. Works great.

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What was the point of the ads? I mean, as a shipper, I would not really care how you moved my product, as long as my product got moved. So who were the ads directed to?