Thursday, September 30, 2010

Another Record Week for Intermodal Rail Traffic

"The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported that U.S. railroads saw the highest weekly intermodal volume for 2010 and highest container count on record for the second consecutive week. For the week ending Sept. 25, 2010, intermodal traffic on U.S. railroads totaled 241,167 trailers and containers, up 17.3 percent from the same week in 2009, but down 2.1 percent compared with 2008. Container volume last week increased 19.2 percent compared with 2009, and rose 6 percent compared with 2008. Trailer volume last week rose 7 percent compared with 2009, but dropped 32.8 percent compared with 2008.

U.S. railroads originated 300,908 carloads for the week, up 10.7 percent compared with the same week in 2009, but down 8.2 percent from the same week in 2008. In order to offer a complete picture of the progress in rail traffic, AAR reports 2010 weekly rail traffic with comparison weeks in both 2009 and 2008."

MP: For the year-t0-date (38 weeks), carload rail volume is up by 7.2% and intermodal rail traffic is up by 14.7%. This marks the 37th straight week starting in mid-January of improvements in intermodal rail traffic compared to the same week in 2009, and except for a holiday-related decline in July, carload volume has increased for the last 31 weeks starting in late February.

Once again, Warren Buffett's favorite economic indicator improved last week and container rail traffic set an all-time historical high.  It has to be a sign of economic recovery that the amount of raw materials, natural resources, grains, chemicals, metals, lumber, paper, glass, sand, gravel, ores, coal, petroleum and farm products being shipped by rail around the country keeps increasing week after week.  After all, those inputs are being ordered by producers somewhere around the country, and will eventually be produced into some intermediate good or final product, and be counted as part of GDP in future quarters.  And an increased volume of inputs moving around the country and the subsequent increase in final output has to eventually translate into more employment. 

3 Comments:

At 9/30/2010 4:18 PM, Blogger Ross said...

"And an increased volume of inputs moving around the country and the subsequent increase in final output has to eventually translate into more employment."

Says who?

 
At 9/30/2010 4:24 PM, Blogger juandos said...

I'm wondering if rail service is cutting into trucking?

From the St. Louis Business Journal: American Trucking Associations: Truck tonnages plunge in August

1st paragraph: The trucking industry slammed on the brakes in August, experiencing the largest month-to-month drop in more than a year and signaling the continued sluggish nature of the economy...

Speaking of rail traffic in general, AMTRAK specifically check this out eye popping, tax sucking bit also from the St. Louis Business Journal:

Amtrak unveiled a plan for high-speed rail between Washington and Boston that would carry passengers along the rails as fast as 220 mph and carry a price tag of as much as $117 billion over 30 years...

 
At 10/01/2010 5:38 AM, Blogger Errores said...

What if it is phony production? I mean with interest at 0%, government stimulus and new regulations, how do business know in what they should invest? How do we know if the market is not just being misled by all this indicators into producing things that the consumers dont really want? How do we know this is not a mini-bubble inside the depression like it happen in the Great Depression.

 

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