North American Rail Traffic Fell 5.1% in Week Ended May 25

By Colin Kellaher

North American rail traffic fell a sharp 5.1% last week, as relentless severe storms and flooding continue to disrupt freight service, the Association of American Railroads said.

Carload volume for the week ended May 25 on 12 reporting U.S., Canadian and Mexican railroads fell 3.6%, while intermodal traffic fell 6.7%, the trade group said.

North American rail traffic was 1.2% lower in the week ended May 18. For the first 21 weeks of the year, North American volume is down 1.5%, compared with a year-to-date decline of 1.3% reported a week earlier.

The AAR said U.S. rail traffic fell 6.7% last week, as the volume of intermodal containers and trailers dropped 8.3%. U.S. carloads fell 5% for the week, with declines in seven of the 10 commodity groups tracked.

U.S. rail traffic is now down 2.3% for the year to date, compared with a cumulative decline of 2% at the end of the previous week, the AAR said.

In a customer notice posted on its website Tuesday, Union Pacific Corp. (UNP) said severe weather, heavy rainfall and flooding are disrupting operations in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas, resulting in prolonged outages.

BNSF, owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKA, BRKB), last week advised customers that repeated heavy rain and storms were causing track outages on multiple subdivisions in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma.

The AAR said rail traffic rose 0.4% in Canada last week, with a 1.1% rise in carloads more than offsetting a 0.5% decline in intermodal units.

Rail traffic fell 3.9% in Mexico last week, with carloads down 3.4% and intermodal units off 4.4%.

Write to Colin Kellaher at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 29, 2019 13:35 ET (17:35 GMT)

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