North American railcar leasing fleets, shippers and railroads pulled 3,064 cars out of storage during June but still had 23.7 percent of their freight hauling equipment sitting idle, the Journal of Commerce reported.
That's the latest estimate from the Association of American Railroads, which said that as of July 1 it figured 365,279 freight cars had gone without a revenue load for at least 60 days.
Industry analysts say most of those taken out of storage would be put into revenue service, but that during this slow recovery car owners are also selling more railcars than usual to scrap dealers whenever metal prices are attractive enough.
The June drawdown of idled railcars was better than the 747 that car owners pulled out of storage during May, but was still low. Equipment owners brought 31,000 parked cars out of rail yards and track sidings during March and 18,000 more in April. But freight traffic has slumped in the two months since then.
Manufacturers say they are building some new railcars such as covered hoppers for special cargo needs, but do not expect to get orders for new intermodal well cars until perhaps late this year. Some are rebuilding unwanted well cars that were originally built to haul 48-ft. domestic containers, and either cutting them down for 40-ft. marine intermodal shipments or stretching them to carry the popular 53-ft. jumbo domestic boxes.
The AAR said railcars in storage have now declined for 12 straight months, since freight began to pick up near the middle of 2009. The percentage of the fleet in storage topped off last year at 31.9 percent, the AAR says, and began this year at 28.2 percent.
(The preceding article by John D. Boyd was published July 16, 2010, by the Journal of Commerce.)
Meanwhile carlods drop off, and intermodal moves are up!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carloads down, intermodal up in latest week Thursday, July 15, 2010
U.S. intermodal freight rail traffic for the week ended July 10 gained over the comparable week in 2009, up 9.1%, the Association of American Railroads reported Thursday. Intermodal volume for the week still trailed its 2008 level, down 16.8%. More worrisome for some observers was the decline in carload freight traffic for the week, down 3.5% compared with 2009 and down 20.8% from 2008 levels. However, the 2010 figures include the July 4 Independence Day holiday, which did not affect comparison weeks in 2008 or 2009, AAR noted.
(AAR earlier this week reported U.S. carload freight for the month of June fell 1.3% from May levels, the second monthly decline, though June carload freight traffic was up 10.6% compared with June 2009. That prompted one web commentator, critical of AAR's presentation of the data though not the data itself, to suggest AAR was part of a hope bandwagon. )
Six of the 19 carload commodity groups increased during the week ended July 10, while all 19 groups trailed the 2008 numbers.
Canadian carload volume for the week was up 18.5% from last year, while intermodal rose 24.3% from the comparable 2009 week. Mexicos two major railroads saw carload volume decline 1.9%, while intermodal also fell, down 2.8%.
Combined North American rail volume for the first 27 weeks of 2010 on 13 reporting U.S., Canadian, and Mexican railroads saw carload volume up 10.4% from last year, while intermodal gained 13.5%.
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