Western Railroad Discussion > Railroad traffic downturn

I know there's been some posts on here about a traffic slowdown from all the locomotives, UP has been the most often cited, that are lined up in storage, and a lot of the speculation listed was due to the large amounts of locomotives purchased in the past couple of years.  However, I'm noticing other signs that rail traffic is really slowing down, not to mention hearing comments from those that work there about this as well.

On a recent trip down the Columbia River gorge in Oregon, I was surprised at all the centerbeam flat cars that UP has in storage now.  There actually seems to be more stored now at these locations than what I saw when the "Great Recession" had it's grips on the economy.  The storage sidings at Heppner were full of them, as well as what's left of the former Heppner branch that runs over the top of the freeway and heads south - centerbeams as far as the eye could see.  UP also had a big line of them stored in the siding at Arlington.  I have heard that the high value of the American dollar has made the lumber imports from Canada cheaper, thus they're giving strong competition to domestic mills, but I would also think that CN then would have a shortage of cars, thus needing many of these (many of the stored cars were TTZX cars, so UP doesn't actually own them, being part of a national car pool that it seems that CN could tap into).  It's a bit scary that this time of year, when one would think the building industries would be very busy, that lumber would be in tight supply as well as these cars.  Indeed, last year, this was the case.  Someone also told me that UP has miles of these cars in storage now on the out of service portion of the former Boise branch in Idaho, east of Boise out to where it connects with the mainline at Orchard ID.

I've got this gut feeling that the economy might not be as rosy as the Fed, business news media and pundits, and "analyists" might be saying...  I know that coal traffic is way down (UP so far seems to be getting hit the hardest right now out of the two that serve the Powder River basin), primarily due to the power plants' switch over to Natural Gas, so this has created a large glut of serviceable locomotives resulting in the storage of many of them.  However, it sure seems like there are signs of a slowdown in many other areas as well, the kind of traffic that has a good tendency to point to future economic factors.

I should also point out that UP isn't the only one storing these cars as BNSF has them stored east of Pasco as well.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/15 10:43 by cpn456.

A lot of Canadian lumber is flowing into the US via rail.  I see a lot of it on NSA and CSX in NJ and PA. A favorable currency will do marvels for making imports cheaper, as US housing starts improve.

In the first table here-  http://railfax.transmatch.com/  total traffic is up since April, but still down compared to the high point Oct.-Jan.  Baseline (coal and grain) still dropping.In the second table there (RR Comparison), after dropping a lot from January, BNSF has been rising since May, UP has leveled off.  CSX and NS still dropping? mapboy

The small centerbeams are obsolete cars, only useful during a housing boom if and when they run out of the large centerbeams.

Best regards,

Rob L.

As I said in another thread, the RBMN in PA has oil tankers parked everywhere and NS has centerbeam and gondolas (mass amounts of them) parked in Roanoke, Va.

One troubling sign is that EWG has been receiving asphalt tankcars, right when those cars should be in high demand.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

 Noticed driving east of Boise last week that the old passenger line that used to handle the Pioneers into town is stuffed full of the lumber cars out near where that line comes off of the mainline near the old water tower; the road comes in there from the truck stop. Guess that's about 10-15 miles east of town.

These are not only the smaller size cars, many of the larger 79 footers as well.  True, the smaller one's, and the one's with the steel ribbing on the platform are the customers least favorite so they tend to get stored first.

rob_l Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The small centerbeams are obsolete cars, only
> useful during a housing boom if and when they run
> out of the large centerbeams.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rob L.

The short center beams could make a ready source of water cars if fiberglass tanks were added to both sides of the beam and connected so both sides unloaded at the same time. These might be used for firefighting or revenue.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7

BNSF is storing war-bonnet GE's in the Saginaw Tx yard.

UP sent two unit oil trains to Walsenburg, CO, - San Luis & Rio Grande (SLRG) RR interchange earlier in June 2015.  Tank cars stored on SLRG.

Lets take a look at the data for Canada, US, and Mexico or by product.  The AAR has a grat interactive chart for the weekly data.  Play with it and come up with your own conclusion.  

https://www.aar.org/data-center/rail-traffic-data

 

Thanks for the link. In April, carload was down 5.4% from year earlier, while intermodal was up 3.8%. The carload decline reflects the significant decline in coal, and there was a decline in forest products as well.

I don't trust the May numbers yet.

Best regards,

Rob L.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/15 08:26 by rob_l.