Triple 14 — Saturday, September 12, 2026

TL;DR — the day in rail + freight.

• Week 35 (ending Sept. 5) printed 533,545 total U.S. carloads and intermodal units, up 13.8% year over year — carloads 234,397 (+8.9%), intermodal 299,148 (+18.0%) [1][2]. Holiday-week comps flatter the number; treat it as a YoY read, not a run-rate.
• Breadth, not a single commodity, drove it: nine of ten carload groups gained, led by metallic ores and metals, grain and chemicals. Coal was the only decliner [2][3][4].
• August set a monthly U.S. intermodal record — nearly 297,000 units per week, +4.4% YoY — beating June 2026 [5]. Box demand is the strongest part of the network right now.
• Saturday means no fresh service print: the AAR weekly traffic report lands Wednesdays and STB EP 770 service data (velocity, dwell, cars online) lands Thursdays. The freshest volume print is week 35, released Sept. 9 [1].
• Regulatory watch is UP–NS (STB FD 36873), still in abeyance with the statutory evidentiary clock unresolved [6] — plus a tit-for-tat U.S.–Canada tariff escalation and a record national diesel average for the week of Sept. 7 [5].

Market snapshot — rail + intermodal rates, volumes, capacity.

Week 35 totals: 234,397 U.S. carloads (+8.9% YoY) and 299,148 intermodal containers and trailers (+18.0%), for 533,545 combined units, up 13.8% [1][2]. Nine of ten carload commodity groups posted year-over-year gains, led by metallic ores and metals (+4,859 to 23,122), grain (+4,373 to 22,509) and chemicals (+3,848 to 33,653); coal was the lone decliner, off 3,547 to 58,037 [2][3][4]. Year to date through 35 weeks, U.S. carloads stand at 7,986,328 (+2.8%) and intermodal at 9,904,325 (+4.2%), combined 17,890,653 (+3.6%) [2][4]. North American volume for the week was 727,511 units (+12.4%), with Canadian carloads up 10.4% and Mexican carloads down 7.4% [2][4]. For trend context, August averaged almost 297,000 weekly U.S. intermodal units, up 4.4% annually and a new monthly record ahead of June 2026 [5].

Two cautions before anyone quotes the 13.8% into a customer deck. First, it is a year-over-year figure against a Labor Day week; no week-over-week delta is available in the fetched releases [1][2][6-note: n/a]. Second, no spot or contract rate data — rail, intermodal or drayage — appears in this cycle's sources. No verified rate index prints today; price your intermodal moves off your own carrier quotes, not off a volume headline.

Service advisories — Class I disruptions: weather, derailments, labor, maintenance windows.

No material development in the fetched sources this cycle. Pull BNSF, UP, CSX, NS and CPKC customer-notice pages directly before committing capacity this weekend.

Port congestion — major ports (LA/LB, NY/NJ, Savannah, Houston): dwell, backups, chassis.

The only port material in this cycle is volume, not fluidity: August capped the best three-month volume run on record for the Port of Los Angeles, U.S. container imports hit their third-highest level on record in August per Descartes, and Port Tracker projects September could pace all 2026 U.S.-bound import volumes [5]; the Port of Long Beach likewise reported its best August on record [2]. No dwell hours, vessel backlogs or chassis street-dwell figures are available in the fetched sources — do not infer congestion from record throughput in either direction.

Regulatory — STB rulings, demurrage rules, tariffs, policy.

UP–NS remains the live docket. In STB Finance Docket No. FD 36873, the acceptance notice published May 29, 2026 (91 FR 32171); Decision No. 21 (May 28, 2026) accepted the application, ordered a full environmental impact statement plus nine supplemental issues, and held the proceeding in abeyance — suspending the Board's own procedural schedule without addressing the § 11325(b)(3) statutory one-year evidentiary clock, leaving it ambiguous whether that clock is running [6]. Separately, on July 21, 2026 the Board denied two BNSF petitions to serve shipper facilities under the 1996 UP–SP merger access conditions (Decisions 53046 and 53058) — a useful precedent on how 2-to-1 access conditions actually get enforced when shippers invoke them [6]. On the trade and cost side, Canada has matched new U.S. tariffs dollar for dollar as talks stall, in response to additional 50% U.S. tariffs on certain Canadian goods under Section 338 [5][7], and the national diesel average hit an all-time high for the week of Sept. 7 per EIA [5]. CN has also outlined proposed conditions intended to preserve rail competition and expand Midwest customer options [2]. No STB demurrage rulemaking or decision appears in this cycle's sources.

Signals worth watching — what to track next.

1. Wednesday's AAR week-36 print. The first clean post-Labor-Day comparison; if intermodal holds near the August record pace, peak-season box capacity tightens into October [1][5].
2. Thursday's STB EP 770 service data. Volume is the demand signal; velocity, terminal dwell and cars online are the constraint signal. Rising dwell against rising AAR volume is the classic precursor to embargoes and intermodal ramp metering.
3. The FD 36873 clock. Whether the Board clarifies the § 11325(b)(3) one-year evidentiary deadline while the case sits in abeyance determines the realistic decision window on UP–NS [6].
4. Cross-border volume. Mexican carloads were down 7.4% in week 35 while Canadian carloads were up 10.4% [2][4]; watch whether matched U.S.–Canada tariffs bend that Canadian strength over the next several weeks [5][7].
5. Coal and diesel. Coal was the only carload group down in week 35 [2][3], and a record diesel average [5] pressures drayage and fuel surcharge math on every intermodal door move.

Sources

1. AAR, "AAR Reports Weekly Rail Traffic for the Week Ending September 5, 2026" — https://www.aar.org/news/aar-reports-weekly-rail-traffic-for-the-week-ending-september-5-2026/
2. AJOT, "AAR reports rail traffic for the week ending September 05, 2026" (Sept. 10, 2026) — https://www.ajot.com/news/aar-reports-rail-traffic-for-the-week-ending-september-05-2026
3. Railpace, "AAR Reports Weekly Rail Traffic for the Week Ending September 5, 2026" (Sept. 9, 2026) — https://railpace.com/aar-reports-weekly-rail-traffic-for-the-week-ending-september-5-2026/
4. IndexBox, "U.S. Rail Traffic Up 13.8% in Week Ending September 5, 2026" (Sept. 9, 2026) — https://www.indexbox.io/blog/us-rail-traffic-up-138-in-week-ending-september-5-2026/
5. Logistics Management, "U.S. rail carload and intermodal momentum continues in August, reports AAR" (Sept. 10, 2026) — https://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/u.s_rail_carload_and_intermodal_momentum_continues_in_august_reports_aar
6. SteelWheels.Co, "UP–NS Merger Timeline & Docket Tracker (STB FD 36873)" — https://steelwheels.co/mergertracker/
7. Logistics Management, "AAR reports gains for U.S. rail carload and domestic volumes, for week of September 5" (Sept. 11, 2026) — https://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/aar_reports_gains_for_u.s_rail_carload_and_domestic_volumes_for_week_of_september_5