US coal carload volumes in the week that ended November 25 fell 5.6% compared with the prior week as counts declined, in part, because of the Thanksgiving holiday, the Association of American Railroads said Wednesday.
The AAR reported that 81,340 coal carloads traveled US railways in the most recent reporting week, down 2.6% compared with the year-ago week.
Coal shipments have remained below their year-ago counts since mid-September, or 11 straight weeks.
Despite the declines seen in the fourth quarter, the coal count so far in 2017 is up 8.7%, or about 321,000 carloads, compared with the first 47 weeks of 2016, the data show.
Canadian railroads -- which include the US operations of Canadian National, which serves several mines in the Illinois Basin, and Canadian Pacific -- saw 6,339 coal carload originations, up 5.1% from the previous week, but down 13.6% from the same week last year.
Canadian coal volumes are up 5.6% year to date through November 25.
