Weekly Intermodal Traffic Rises 11.2%
Traffic rose to 232,187 units for the week ended Saturday, the railroad trade group said in its weekly report.
Trailers rose 3.7% to 33,342 units, while containers increased 12.6% to 198,836 units.
For the month of April, intermodal traffic rose 9% from a year ago to almost 915,000 units, AAR said in a separate report.
U.S. rail carloads slipped 0.2% from the same month last year, the first such downturn since February 2010.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, intermodal traffic rose 1.2% from March 2011, while carloads declined 2.5%.
Intermodal loadings in April 2011 averaged 228,630 units, the second highest average for any April in history, behind April 2006, AAR said.
Railroad volume is considered an important economic indicator. Intermodal traffic, which tends to be higher-valued merchandise than bulk commodities, uses trains for the long haul and trucks for the shorter distance at either end of the trip.
