US weekly chemical railcar traffic rises 4.0% year on year

24 November 2010 16:42  [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS)--Chemical shipments on US railroads rose 4.0% last week compared with the same period in 2009, a rail industry group said on Wednesday, marking their 45th increase so far this year.

There were 28,527 chemical railcar loadings in the week ending on 20 November, up 1,104 carloads from 27,423 in the same week last year, according to the Association of American Railroads.

The increase compared with a year-on-year rise of 4.1% in the previous week, which ended on 13 November.

The weekly chemical railcar loadings data are an important real-time measure of chemical industry activity and demand. Railcar loadings represent about 20% of US chemical volumes by tonnage, with trucks, barges and pipelines carrying the rest.

The increase in last week's chemical shipments compared with a 3.9% year-on-year increase in overall weekly railcar shipments for the 19 high-volume freight commodity groups tracked by the association.

The data also showed that during 2010 there were 1,328,246 US chemical railcar loadings up until 20 November, a rise of 9.6% compared with the 1,212,223 in the same period of 2009.

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By: Stefan Baumgarten
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