Weekly US coal carloads total 78,519, down 3.7% on week, 0.5% on year: AAR

28th May 2018

US coal carloads fell to 78,519 in the week that ended May 19, down 3.7% from 81,523 a week earlier and also 0.5% lower than the 78,990 carloads shipped in the year-ago week, the Association of American Railroads said Wednesday.

However, the most recent week was the fifth straight week to track higher than the corresponding weeks of 2016 and 2017.

But this week’s carloads were still 14.4% lower than the five-year average of 91,742.

Coal carloads represented 14.4% of all the traffic on US railways, down from 14.8% a week earlier and also 14.8% in the year-ago week.

Coal originations on Canadian railroads — including the US operations of Canadian National, which serves several mines in the Illinois Basin — climbed to 7,922 in the latest week, up 5.9% from a nine-week low of 7,483 a week earlier and 14.8% higher than shipments in the year-ago week.

Of the four major Class I railroads, CSX saw the biggest week-on-week decrease.

CSX coal carloads were at a 13-week low of 14,606 in the latest week, down 18.3% from the 2018 high of 17,879 a week earlier but up 0.7% year on year. In the most recent week, coal represented 11.5% of total CSX traffic, the lowest since 9.8% in the week that ended January 13.

Since January 1, CSX coal carloads have totalled 304,430, up 3.7% from a year ago.

BNSF and Union Pacific both saw slight week-on-week increases, with reported carloads of 33,265 and 17,200, up 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively. Since January, the cumulative carload totals for BNSF and UP are at 699,610 and 405,239, down 0.9% and 4.6%, respectively.

Norfolk Southern’s weekly carloads totalled 19,831, down 2.5% from a week ago, but up 12.4% from a year earlier. So far in 2018, NS’ carloads are up to 374,706, down 1% compared with the same period a year ago.

Source: PLATTS