The Association of American Railroads has revealed that US railroad freight traffic stood at 285,108 carloads for the week ending 8 January 2011, a 20.1% rise compared with the same week last year.
Intermodal traffic for the week totalled 213,665 trailers and containers, up 8.6% compared with the same week a year ago, with container volume up 10% and trailer volume up 1%.
Carload volume on eastern railroads was up 18.9%, while in the west, carload volume was up 20.9%.
Canadian railroads reported a volume of 70,742 cars for the week, up 5.4% from 2010, and 44,314 trailers or containers, up 3.4%.
Combined North American rail volume for the first week of 2011 on 13 reporting US, Canadian and Mexican railroads totalled 368,809 carloads, up 16.1% from last year, and 264,038 trailers and containers, up 7.5%.
