For the week ending March 5, 2022, U.S. rail traffic came in at 505,177 carloads and intermodal units, dipping 1.9% from the same week last year, based on 238,870 carloads—up 2.8% from 2021—and intermodal volume of 266,307 containers and trailers—down 5.8%, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported on March 9.
Nothing highlights the impact and risks of the global supply chain on the North American rail industry better than wheels. Yes, wheels for rail rolling stock: freight cars, passenger and transit cars, and locomotives.
“U.S. rail traffic had big year-over-year gains in February largely because severe winter storms held volumes back last February,” AAR Senior Vice President John T. Gray reported on March 2.
How remarkable that the customarily staid Association of American Railroads (AAR) is following a Marx Brothers comedy script to derail a Surface Transportation Board (STB) proposed rulemaking intended to assure railroad competition. One scene violates first-year law school advice not to irritate judges hearing your case; another vandalizes economic science by comparing a highly competitive soft drink market with rail service monopolies.
The Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) has rejected Ensco’s offer to keep the Strategic Research Initiatives (SRI) program at the Pueblo, Colo., facility.
U.S. rail traffic for the week ending Feb. 19, 2022, came in at 497,822 carloads and intermodal units, rising 31.7% from the same week last year, based on 237,256 carloads—up 38.2% from 2021—and intermodal volume of 260,566 containers and trailers—up 26.3%, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported on Feb. 23.
The Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) is now providing online access to 30 years of railroad technology research performed under the Association of American Railroads’ (AAR) Strategic Research Initiatives (SRI) program.
For the week ending Feb. 12, 2022, U.S. rail traffic was up 5% over the same week last year; total carloads came in 11.9% higher while intermodal volume continued its downward trend, dipping 0.4%, according to the Association of American Railroads’ (AAR) Feb. 16 report.
On March 15-16, the Surface Transportation Board, more than a year after emerging from a long period of public-near-silence following the election of Joe Biden as President of the United States, will hold a hearing (STB Ex Parte No. 711, Sub-No. 1) on reciprocal (“forced”) switching, a subject upon which freight railroads and many of their major customers have been deeply divided for a very long time.
U.S. rail traffic for the week ending Feb. 5, 2022 was 458,152 carloads and intermodal units, down 7.6% compared with the same week last year, based on 218,286 carloads—down 3.6%—and intermodal volume of 239,866 containers and trailers—down 11%, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported on Feb. 9.