Carload Volumes
Carload volumes largely followed historical seasonal patterns for the July 4th holiday week, with most categories shedding volume because of the lost workday. Petroleum products was an outlier with a small positive move, but it remains at the low end of its pre-pandemic range. It is expected that most carload volume sectors will quickly bounce back to their pre-holiday levels in the latest week.
Intermodal
Intermodal volumes declined much more substantially than their carload brethren as the holiday dovetailed with a port strike in Western Canada to limit volume levels. Given the Western Canadian port labor dispute was only settled on July 13, this week’s results are unlikely to bounce all the way back to pre-holiday levels as the impacts of the port issues will remain for the majority of the week. It will be two more weeks before meaningful intermodal numbers appear that provide insight into how the industry is faring after the port disruption and July 4th holiday effects.
STB Amtrak Investigation
In other news, the Surface Transportation Board is starting an investigation into the on-time performance of Amtrak’s Sunset Limited. The three-times-per-week passenger train that runs between New Orleans and Los Angeles has not performed close to the required 80% on-time performance required under legislation that was enacted in 2008.
Based on data submitted by Amtrak in the proceeding, on-time performance has ranged as low as the upper single digits for on-time performance. Passenger trains are expected to be given preference over freight trains, but the elements of what that preference looks like are only faintly defined in statute and precedent. The pending STB case could more brightly draw those lines and be used as a precedent for other passenger rail cases against other carriers in the future.
Any additional capacity consumed by passenger trains – either by additional train starts or by setting exacting standards that require freight carriers to build a buffer around passenger services – will erode the amount of capacity available to freight shippers. This could have the direct effect of holding back absolute levels of freight service and lead to a lack of ability to exceed historical average levels without significant additional capital expenditures.
