La nota que sigue
es breve y viene de Zero Hedge. Básicamente son tres fotos que muestran casi
300 locomotoras alineadas en una vía en pleno desierto, tomando sol,
completamente al cuete. No vagones, chicos: locomotoras. Una faceta más de la depresión en curso.
Título: Haunting
Pictures Of A Transportation Recession As Freight Rail Traffic Plunges
Subtítulo: 292
Union Pacific engines idled in Arizona Desert
Texto: Total US
rail traffic in April plunged 11.8% from a year ago, the Association of
American Railroads reported today. Carloads of bulk commodities such as coal,
oil, grains, and chemicals plummeted 16.1% to 944,339 units.
The coal industry
is in a horrible condition and cannot compete with US natural gas at current
prices. Coal-fired power plants are being retired. Demand for steam coal is
plunging. Major US coal miners – even the largest one – are now bankrupt. So in
April, carloads of coal plummeted 40% from the already beaten-down levels a
year ago. The AAR report:
Rail coal traffic
continues to suffer due to low natural gas prices and high coal stockpiles at
power plants. Coal accounted for just 26% of non-intermodal rail traffic for US
railroads in April 2016, down from 36% in April 2015 and 45% as recently as
late 2011.
Only five of the
20 commodity categories saw gains. Of the decliners, coal was the biggest. But
petroleum products also plunged 25%, and grain mill products dropped 7%. Even
without coal, carloads were down 3% year-over-year.
But it’s not just
coal. In April, loads of containers and trailers fell 7.5% year-over-year to
1,028,460 intermodal units. They transport goods for retailers and wholesalers.
They haul parts, components, and assemblies for manufacturers. They haul
imported goods from ports and borders to different destinations across the
country, and they haul goods to be exported to the ports and borders. They’re a
measure of the real economy.
For the first 17
weeks of the year, total rail freight fell 7.8% from the same period a year
ago, with carload traffic down 14.3% and intermodal down 0.8%.
But there’s hope,
because there’s always hope. AAR Senior VP of Policy and Economics John Gray:
“We expect
non-coal carloads to strengthen when the economy gets stronger, and we think
intermodal weakness in April is probably at least partly a function of high
business inventories that need to be drawn down before new orders, and thus new
shipments, are made.”
Ah yes,
inventories. We’ve long bemoaned their ballooning to crisis levels.
It didn’t get any
better at the end of April: for the week ending April 30, carloads plunged
14.1% and intermodal traffic dropped 8.6% from the same week a year ago.
The impact on
railroads is now very visible – and not just in the numbers on their income
statements.
Here’s how Union
Pacific is dealing with this issue, via Google Earth, on May 3: 292 engines
idled on a siding west of Benson, Arizona, along I-10, for a stretch of nearly
4 miles. Note how the line of locomotives curves and fades into the left edge
of the photo – an once majestic and haunting sight, all these powerful machines
idled on a track in the Arizona desert (click images to enlarge):
These engines are
expensive pieces of equipment. When they just sit there, not pulling trains,
they become “overcapacity,” and they get very expensive. Then there are
engineers and other personnel who suddenly become unproductive. What you see
parked here is a drag on earnings. I added the red line for clarity:
The person who
sent me these pictures lives and works in that neck of the woods. He said:
“I remember back
in 2008-2009, hundreds if not thousands of rail cars stacked along I-10 in
AZ-NM on side rails. I have not traveled east bound in a couple of years. I
suspect rail cars may be piling up. They need to be parked somewhere. We may
head over to Carlsbad Caverns in eastern NM soon, and I will keep an eye out…”
This scenario is
playing out across the country, railroad by railroad, perhaps thousands of
engines and hundreds of thousands of rail cars – an enormous capital investment
– parked mostly out of sight somewhere, “overcapacity” that is now waiting for
better days, and the end of the US transportation recession.
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