U.S. and Canadian Railroad Carload Traffic is Booming

Figures are for the week of May 1, the 17th week of 2004. While there were steep decreases in primary forest product (-16.0%) and metallic ore (-9.0%) loadings, other commodities were showing double-digit growth. These included coke (+22.6%), farm products not including grain (+19.1%), petroleum products (+17.8%), waste and scrap material (+16.6%), grain (+16.4%), and lumber and wood products (+16.2%). For the week, Canadian carload traffic was up 10.1% and intermodal traffic showed a 2.8% gain. For the first 17 weeks of the year, cumulative carload traffic is up 7.1% though intermodal is down a modest 0.3% year-over-year.

Mexico’s Transortacion Ferroviaria Mexicana (TFM) showed an increase for the week of 8.3% in carload freight year-over-year, though cumulative volumes are down for the beginning of 2004 by 4.7%.