North American Rail Traffic Rose 3% in Week Ended Jan. 9

By Colin Kellaher

North American rail traffic rose 3% last week, starting the new year on a positive note amid strong intermodal gains in the U.S. and Canada, data from the Association of American Railroads showed.

Carload volume fell 2.5% for the week ended Jan. 9 on 12 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads, while intermodal traffic rose 8.3%, the trade group said Wednesday.

In the week ended Jan. 2, North American rail traffic rose 1.3%, wrapping up a year that saw an overall decline of 6.7%.

Analysts at Citi this week said railroad fundamentals "are probably as good as we've seen," and that they estimate volume could be up 8% this year.

The AAR said U.S. rail traffic rose 4.7% last week, with a 10.4% increase in the volume of intermodal containers and trailers more than offsetting a 1.6% decline in carloads.

Canadian rail traffic rose 1.3% last week amid a 3.3% decline in carloads and a 6.6% rise in intermodal volume.

Mexican rail traffic tumbled 13% last week, with carloads falling 10.7% and intermodal volume sliding 15.6%, the AAR said.

Write to Colin Kellaher at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 13, 2021 13:03 ET (18:03 GMT)

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