Posted on 10/11/2010 7:11:42 PM PDT by blam
Rail Traffic Continues To Be Strong, And It's Actually Accelerating
Joe Weisenthal
Oct. 11, 2010, 4:46 PM
One of the best economic indicators out there -- rail traffic -- continues to flash a big green light.
From the Association of American Railroads' Rail Time Indicators report, these two charts show rail traffic strong and even surging.
And here's the actual volume levels over the last few years:
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
The 2010 line looks more horizontal than “strong” or “surging.”
Ha! Anyone who has had to go through airport security lately can guess why railroads are picking up riders.
I’m not impressed.
Wow, luckily George Westinghouse invented the air brake, so we'll be able to slow it down...
Ahhh, now I see this report is focusing on commodities, not passengers. Whose that Freeper who’s tagline says something like “Posting comments without reading articles since ____”? :-p
...I made money on CSX and sold...it’s hard for me to hold a stock that only pays 1.8%...I’d like to know what kinds of numbers Burlington Morthern/Santa Fe is putting up but it’s privately held...owned by Warren Buffett actually.
It’s not riders, it’s freight.
Last I heard trucking volumes were DOWN. Rail traffic is cheaper. That probably explains this.
I think one would find that overall shipping volume is down.
I 've read that Buffett has made $15 billion since he bought Burlington Northern RR.
We could increase the riders by rounding up the 30 million illegal aliens in this country and shipping them back into Mexico.
That would help the horizontal surge.
You bet! That is a good sign - if only the confidence of the public would recover (after Republicans regain control of the Congress (stop spending) and the Senate (stop crazy judges from being assigned)... Hmmm...
“I ‘ve read that Buffett has made $15 billion since he bought Burlington Northern RR.”
...I’m not surprised...he’s known for finding a good value company and making a big bet on it...it was his purchase of Burlington Northern/Santa Fe that attracted me to CSX.
You picked the wrong one...you should have chosen NS.
But it is not too late!
Cosco = China Overseas Shipping Company
Trucking companies are starting to switch to rail for long haul jobs. (J. B. Hunt is the biggest so far.) If crude oil stays high or goes even higher look for more freight to move by rail. The energy efficiency is high, and railroads are making modest capital investments in capacity.
In recent years the percentage of truck traffic on some rural Interstate segments has approached 50 percent, a volume that shortens pavement life and impacts traffic flow in numerous ways. Moving that freight by rail and allowing trucks to take it “the last mile.” can be a win-win for both modes as well as the taxpayers and motorists.
Alls well, except that the US Dollar is only worth 70 percent of what it was, that’s how they can say it will be a decade before the jobs will be recovered, so the amount of traffic does not have the value it used to have.
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