I think a lot of the traffic I see turns west at Canton SD.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Further south on the same line, I'm not sure about traffic totals -- it's only occasionally in my view -- but the time consumed by parked trains awaiting a new crew is down substantially from a couple of months ago.
Murphy,
BNSF prublishes weekly carload data and totals it on quarterly and annual basis. Go to website BNSF.COM, tab ABOUT, then FINANCIAL, then WEEKLY CARLOAD REPORTS.
For Week 44 Year to Date Intermodal, Coal and Grain are flat with total carloads up only 3% for the year. YTD only significant gains are in sand & gravel, up 14.7% and petroleum, up 14.9%. For the week grain was up 27% so grain is moving. Absolute numbers Grain and Petroleum were 10,000 and 11,000 carloads each in round numbers. Much of that grain is comming out of the dakotas and virtually all of the oil out of North Dakota.
Why is other traffic down, lack of demand or inability of BNSF to handle it? That the traffic figures can not tell us.
I know AAR regularly publishes traffic figures for the industry. I suspect other carriers do too, but am not familiar with where and when and how.
Mac
In my part of the world- corn and bean country of S.E. South Dakota- railroad traffic seems to be way up over last year. I live and work a half mile offf the BNSF rail line. With all the grain, ethanol, and pink rock unit trains rolling by, I'd guess that traffic could be up 50% from this time last year. Heck- The Burlington even brings us a lumber car now and then- whenever they darnded well feel like it. I'd like to think it's because of all the squawking done by our elected officials about rail service, but I know better. Is this surge in traffic just an upper plains/ grain traffic thing?
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