US weekly chemical railcar traffic rises 3.2% year on year

03 February 2011 18:30  [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS)--Chemical shipments on US railroads rose 3.2% in the week ended 29 January compared with the same period in 2010, a rail industry group said on Thursday.

There were 30,828 chemical railcar loadings last week, up 954 carloads from the 29,874 loadings in the same week a year earlier, according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

The week ended 22 January saw a year-on-year rise of 3.1%.

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 chemical carloads compares with what the AAR said was a 4.7% year-on-year increase in overall US weekly railcar shipments for the 19 high-volume freight commodity groups tracked by the AAR.

Year to date to 29 January, US chemical railcar loadings rose 5.9% to 120,734 carloads from 113,957 in the year-earlier period.

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