Hurricanes fail to halt U.S. railroad freight traffic growth

Hurricanes fail to halt U.S. railroad freight traffic growth    The Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported Thursday that freight traffic on U.S. railroads remained above year ago levels during the week ended Sept. 24, despite the impacts of hurricanes Rita and Katrina
   Intermodal volume for the week totaled 241,116 trailers or containers, up 4.4 percent from last year with container volume increasing 5.2 percent and trailer volume gaining 2 percent. Carload freight, which doesn’t include the intermodal data, totaled 335,932 cars, up 0.5 percent from last year, with loadings up 6.8 percent in the East but down 4.3 percent in the West. Total volume was estimated at 33.1 billion ton-miles, up 1.5 percent from the corresponding week last year.
   The AAR said volume for the first 38 weeks of 2005 totaled 12.6 million trailers or containers, a 1.5 percent increase on the year-earlier period.