Econintersect: Rail traffic according to RailFax for w/e 31 December ended the year lower week-over-week. Early in 2010, rail’s performance YoY was growing. It stabilized in the middle of the 2Q – and early in the 4th quarter began trending down. After last weeks expansion, traffic was down this week. YoY growth decreased this week from approximately 27.6% last week to 8.7%. Four week rolling average growth decreased slightly from 11.7% to 11.4%.
The takeaway from this data is that the rail traffic has a 10% higher baseline to beat for YoY gains in 2011.
Total US Rail Traffic
| Major Commodity Groups | Total | Grain | Chemicals | Food | Forest | Metals | Coal | Autos | Intermodal |
| Current Week | |||||||||
| Vs. 2009 | 8.1% | 3.1% | 11.9% | 3.5% | 21.0% | 28.4% | (2.0%) | 8.2% | 11.9% |
| Vs. 2008 | 7.9% | 6.2% | 31.8% | 13.1% | 29.4% | 48.4% | (13.2%) | 65.8% | 13.9% |
| 4 Week Rolling Avg. | |||||||||
| Vs. 2009 | 11.4% | 11.4% | 11.8% | 1.6% | 12.9% | 23.9% | 8.6% | (3.1%) | 13.1% |
| Vs. 2008 | 11.1% | 27.6% | 27.7% | 11.0% | 9.2% | 36.3% | (7.2%) | 25.4% | 18.5% |
| Quarter to Date | |||||||||
| Vs. 2009 | 9.9% | 6.0% | 8.0% | (0.2%) | 6.5% | 30.8% | 5.4% | (4.2%) | 12.9% |
| Vs. 2008 | 1.5% | 14.6% | 13.4% | 3.4% | (9.6%) | 13.3% | (9.7%) | (3.8%) | 7.0% |
| Year to Date | |||||||||
| Vs. 2009 | 10.2% | 11.0% | 9.0% | 2.4% | 4.4% | 38.1% | 1.2% | 17.3% | 14.2% |
| Vs. 2008 | (6.7%) | (5.0%) | (1.8%) | (5.1%) | (21.2%) | (14.0%) | (9.8%) | (22.1%) | (1.9%) |
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