Posted on 10/12/2009 1:39:26 PM PDT by blam
AAR Reports Rail Traffic Continues to Reflect Down Economy
8 Oct 2009
For more information contact:
AAR Communications, 202-639-2100
Holly Arthur harthur@aar.org
Lauren Sandberg lsandberg@aar.org
AAR Reports Rail Traffic Continues to Reflect Down Economy
All 19 Freight Commodity Groups Show Declines
WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 8, 2009 — The Association of American Railroads today reported that for the week ended Oct. 3, 2009, rail traffic continues to reflect the down economy – originating 277,734 carloads, down 17.2 percent compared with the same week in 2008. All of the 19 carload freight commodity groups were down from the same week last year, with declines ranging from 2.7 percent for chemicals to 53.2 percent for metallic ores.
Intermodal traffic of 206,293 trailers or containers on U.S. railroads was down 15.7 percent from the same week last year. Container volume fell 10 percent and trailer volume dropped 37 percent.
Regionally, carloads were down 16.4 percent in the West and 18.3 percent in the East. For the first 39 weeks of 2009, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 10,381,905 carloads, down 18.1 percent from 2008; 7,347,299 trailers or containers, down 16.8 percent, and total volume of an estimated 1.11 trillion ton-miles, down 17.3 percent. Total volume on U.S. railroads for the week ending October 3 was estimated at 29.7 billion ton-miles, off 16.6 percent from the same week last year.
[snip]
Meanwhile, ocean shipping:
Baltic Exchange Dry Index Charts
Willie Green is deeply saddened.
9/18/09 New building cancellations to top 40% of current dry bulk orderbook says National Bank of Greece
But, new building cancellations will reach about 40% of the total orderbook sayd NBG, which means that 100 million dwt will never reach the water. This, coupled with an estimated 70 million dwt of scrapping of older tonnage, could allow for a gradual recovery of dry bulk usage, close to the ten year average of 87% of available hiring days. Should this scenario materialize, dry bulk rates will drop below 2,000 points during 2010 and recover higher than 3,000 points during 2011, which could be deemed as very satisfactory, should one consider the current imbalance in the market.
Building stopped, 70mdwt scrap... Buy?
I have seen much higher truck traffic than usual in Houston over the last three weeks or so.
Hopefully a turn around....
Everything I’ve been reading in the trucking magazines would indicate otherwise.
Coal mines closing or cutting shifts,
Electrical utilities are seeing a large drop in demand. Some power plants went cold iron.
Nobody is predicting a good Christmas season for retail. In fact retailers are preparing by cutting back orders.
Car sales went back down after the Cash for Clunkers deal expired.
Business wise I’m seeing a lot of folks holding their breath wondering when things will hit the real bottom.
I don’t see how the economy can recover with consumers continuing to take the hits.
Look on the bright side: much smaller carbon footprint.
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