JULY RAILTIME INDICATORS REPORTS | PRAGMATIC CAPITALISM

Courtesy of the AAR:

What are the latest numbers for U.S. railroads?

• U.S. freight railroads originated 1,415,630 carloads in June 2010, an average of 283,126 carloadsper week — up 10.6% from June 2009 (see chart below right) but down 10.2% from June 2008 on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. In the second quarter of 2010, carloads were up 13.8% over the second quarter of 2009. For the first six months of 2010, carloads were up 7.8% over the first six months of 2009.

• June 2010’s weekly average of 283,126 carloads was down from May 2010’s 288,419 averageand down from April 2010’s 294,758 average (see chart below left). In other words, after four straight months of increasing average carloads (January to April 2010), average weekly carloads have fallen for two straight months (May and June 2010) on a non-seasonally adjusted basis.

• On a seasonally adjusted basis, U.S. rail carloads fell 1.3% in June 2010 from May 2010, following a 1.1% decline in May 2010 from April 2010. After bottoming out in May 2009, seasonally adjusted rail carloads trended upward, with some fits and starts along the way, through April 2010. They’ve now declined for two consecutive months.

• The declines in rail carloads over the past couple months have not been huge, and they certainly don’t prove that the wheels are coming off the economy’s bus. After all, the improvement in carloads this year over last year is still significant: U.S. railroads originated 136,136 more carloads in June 2010, and 454,708 more carloads in the second quarter of 2010, than they did in the comparable periods in 2009.