US weekly chemical railcar traffic rises 6.4% year on year

17 February 2011 17:13  [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS)--Chemical shipments on US railroads rose 6.4% in the week ended 12 February compared with the same period in 2010, a rail industry group said on Thursday.

There were 29,321 chemical railcar loadings last week, up 1,775 carloads from the 27,546 loadings in the same week a year earlier, according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

The previous week ended 5 February saw a year-on-year rise of 4.1%.

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.

Overall US weekly railcar shipments for the 19 high-volume freight commodity groups tracked by the AAR rose 6.2% to 274,043.

Year to date to 12 February, US chemical railcar loadings were up 5.7% to 178,884 carloads from 169,202 in the year-earlier period.

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By: Stefan Baumgarten
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