Following is a monthly update on United States (rail freight traffic by sector with Canadian totals), with a focus on carloads. The data in the table is from the April issue of Railway Age, and we have added a column that shows typical car types for ease of reference. Each month, when this data is published, the report is for the second previous month. Here is the current information reported, which covers in this case the four weeks ending February 27th:
| Major US Railroads | ||||
| Commodity | Typical Car Type (s) | February 2021 | February 2020 | % Change |
| Grain | Covered Hopper | 91,164 | 78,822 | 15.66% |
| Farm Products ex. Grain | Covered Hopper, Gondola | 3,430 | 3,883 | -11.67% |
| Grain Mill Products | Covered Hopper | 33,787 | 36,540 | -7.53% |
| Food Products | Boxcar, Tankcar, other | 22,765 | 23,030 | -1.15% |
| Chemicals | Boxcar, Tankcar, other | 118,468 | 132,417 | -10.53% |
| Petroleum & Petroleum Products | Tankcar | 39,991 | 52,203 | -23.39% |
| Coal | Gondola | 221,946 | 253,783 | -12.54% |
| Primary Forest Products | Flatcar, Gondola | 3,834 | 4,182 | -8.32% |
| Lumber & Wood Products | Flatcar | 13,170 | 13,697 | -3.85% |
| Pulp & Paper Products | Boxcar | 21,347 | 20,769 | 2.78% |
| Metallic Ores | Open top Hopper, Gondola | 15,769 | 15,548 | 1.42% |
| Coke | Open top Hopper | 12,287 | 15,002 | -18.10% |
| Primary Metal Products | Gondola, Flatcar, Boxcars | 33,104 | 36,210 | -8.58% |
| Iron & Steel Scrap | Gondola | 14,761 | 15,312 | -3.60% |
| Motor Vehicles & Parts | Autorack, Boxcar, Flatcar | 55,806 | 70,142 | -20.44% |
| Crushed Stone, Sand & Gravel | Open top Hopper, Gondola | 49,288 | 73,608 | -33.04% |
| Nonmetallic Minerals | Open top Hopper, Gondola | 12,052 | 13,718 | -12.14% |
| Stone, Clay & Glass Products | Covered Hopper, Open top Hopper, etc. | 25,933 | 28,191 | -8.01% |
| Waste & Nonferrous Scrap | Gondola | 12,514 | 13,682 | -8.54% |
| All other carloads | n/a | 23,220 | 26,869 | -13.58% |
| Total US Carloads | 824,636 | 927,608 | -11.10% | |
| Canadian Carloads | 293,618 | 308,922 | -4.95% | |
| Combined US & Canadian Carloads | 1,118,254 | 1,236,530 | -9.57% |
As much as everyone would like to see our economy has recovered from the pandemic, this data shows we are still down over 10% in carload shipments; which in our view is a reasonable measure of economic and industrial activity. Future monthly comparisons may give a false impression of current trends as the “year-ago” months coming up head into the initial shutting down of much of the economic activity.
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