Canadian Pacific Kansas City was the only Class I railroad that was able to eke out higher volume last year.
CPKC’s traffic was up a scant 0.1% in 2023, which was a down year for North American freight volume. Rail traffic in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico was down a combined 2.1% last year, according to Association of American Railroads data.
The other five Class I railroads all lost volume, according to their final weekly AAR carload reports for 2023.
Union Pacific, which saw its volume fall 1%, was in second place overall and captured first place among U.S. railroads.
In the East, CSX and Norfolk Southern posted identical 1.3% declines.
Canadian National’s volume fell 5.1%, largely due to a 15% drop in intermodal volume.
In the basement: BNSF Railway, whose traffic slumped 5.7% for the year, with grain traffic declining 12% and intermodal traffic down 9.5% due in part to the loss of Schneider domestic intermodal business to UP.
There was good news in the traffic data, however, as volume accelerated as the year drew to a close. Fourth-quarter volume was up on all of the big systems with the exception of CN.
BNSF’s fourth-quarter volume was up 4.1%, UP’s 4%, NS 3.2%, CPKC 2.3%, and CSX 1.7%. CN’s fourth-quarter volume declined 1%.
U.S. rail traffic declined 2.3% in 2023, with intermodal down 4.9% and carload traffic up 0.7% compared to 2022, the AAR reported this week. Compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, overall U.S. rail traffic was down 8.7% in 2023, with intermodal slumping 7.7% and carload traffic down 9.8%, according to AAR data. A big factor in the carload numbers: A 14.5% drop in coal volume between 2019 and 2023.
