US coal carload originations totaled 83,006 for the week ended June 23, down 3% from the week prior, the Association of American Railroads said Wednesday.
Overall, coal took up 14.9% of total US traffic, down just 0.4% from last week. Year-to-date coal carloads saw a 0.2% increase, but that is the smallest gain since the early May.
Canadian coal carloads saw a 9% decrease from the year-ago date, the largest drop since the week ended March 3. Combined, US and Canada saw a 4.1% drop in coal traffic.
From the four major Class 1 railroads, Union Pacific saw an increase of 1% from the previous week to 20,822, the only Class 1 railroad to see a week on week gain. However, UP also experienced the largest decline from the year-ago week, with a decrease of 14.7%.
Only Norfolk Southern, at 0.3%, saw a rise from the year ago week, the third week in a row with a year-on-year increase.
Year to date, CSX continued to see an increase, while the other major Class 1 railroads experienced cuts.
The year to date coal carloads for the major Class 1 railroads total 2.2 million, a 1.7% decrease from this point in 2017. The weekly total from last year was 5.9% less than the year-ago week.
