WASHINGTON — U.S. weekly rail traffic showed gains over 2022 figures for the week ending Sept. 23, the second consecutive week of improvement after traffic has been below year-earlier figures for most of 2023, according to statistics from the Association of American Railroads.
The week saw 493,232 carloads and intermodal units, a 2.8% increase over the corresponding week in 2022. That included 234,904 carloads, up 4.7% from a year earlier, and 258,419 containers and trailers, up 1.2%. Those gains followed increases for the week ending Sept. 16 that included an overall increase of 1.8%, a rise in carload traffic of 0.2%, and a gain in intermodal traffic of 3.3%.
Year-to-date figures still remain below 2022. Through 38 weeks of 2023, carload traffic is up 0.2% while intermodal volume is down 8.5% for an overall decline of 4.5%.
North American figures also edged upward. Volume from 12 reporting U.S., Canadian, and Mexican railroads for the week includes 346,952 carloads, up 3.7%; 342,697 intermodal units, down 0.3%, and a total of 689,659 carloads and intermodal units, up 1.7%. This was the first time the weekly North American figure had edged into positive territory in some time; a week ago, overall North American traffic was still down 0.8% compared to the same week in 2022.
Year-to-date figures have overall North American traffic down 3.9% compared to the first 38 weeks of 2022.
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