WASHINGTON — February’s severe weather across the nation drove rail traffic downward for the month, but traffic showed recovery during the week ending Feb. 27, according to the Association of American Railroads.
In a press release, AAR Senior Vice President John T. Gray said the weather wrecked “havoc on all forms of transportation, including rail. In facdt, the total U.S. rail carloads in the third week of February were the lowest for any week in AAR’s records that go back to 1988. While carloads rebounded during the last week to a more typical level, February ended with noticeably lower total volumes.”
For the month, total traffic of 1.84 million carloads and intermodal units was down 4.4% over the same month in 2020, with the 824,636 carloads representing an 11.1% decrease and intermodal volume of 1,015,995 trailers and containers up 1.8%. Three commodities saw increases, led by grain, up 15.7%; coal, down 12.5%, led the commodities seeing declines.
For February’s final week, the total traffic of 486,429 carloads and intermodal units represented a 1.7% increase. The 215,181 carloads were an 8.5% decrease over the same week in 2020, while the 271,248 intermodal units marked a 11.6% increase. Among individual commodities, only grain, up 13.6%, showed an increase.
The North American totals for 12 reporting U.S., Canadian, and Mexican Railroads show an overall increase of 2.2% over the corresponding week a year earlier, with carloads down 7.4% and intermodal up 12.4%. Canadian railroads reported 79,210 carloads, down 1.6%, and 71,724 intermodal units, up 23.5%.
Paragraph 2, sentence 1: “. . . the weather WRECKED havoc . . .”. The word you want is WREAKED. Does no one know the difference any more? I’m no great editor/proofreader, but even I know that.
John Odom