Freight Transport -- December 13, 2024

A reader sent me this graph without comment.

My reply:

This is an incredibly interesting graph.

Except for 2021, which is an outlier, due to that year being the year following the year of Covid-19 when the US was recovering from a complete lockdown, the freight shipments have been down since 2010 and not only down but negative.

Based on this graphic, Buffett bought BNSF at its high. Buffett bought BNSF in 2010 -- the last high water mark for freight shipments.

Cass Freight index, I believe is TRUCKING and not rail, but both truck and rail would be closely related when considering overall freight shipments.

So, rail:

 

This tells me that the US experienced a huge "industrial" change fifteen years ago, switching from an industrial economy to a service industry, and now most recently an AI industry that needs "no" rail or truck support.

This is similar to the switch from an agrarian economy in the 1800s to a heavy industry economy in the 1900s.

And there's no evidence that we're going to go back to an industrial economy though Trump will work to change that.

 

The reader has a better explanation:

One huge item for BNSF hipments stems from NG. 20 odd years, near Alliance, Nebraska, and on side rails, were parked 11 huge unit trains for getting coal to/from the Powder river Basin.   Find out how much coal shipment have gone down in these years due to NG and this is true BNSF industrial number.  It would be interesting to know.