Houston (Platts)--30Oct2014/420 pm EDT/2020 GMT

Weekly coal carloads originated by US railroads totaled 115,551 in the week that ended Saturday, up 4.6% from the prior week and 3.7% above the year-ago week, the Association of American Railroads said Thursday.

The number also was up 3.5% from with the year-to-date weekly average of 111,664 carloads. But as a percentage of overall railroad traffic, coal made up 19.7% of carloads during the week, down from the year-to-date average of 20.3%.

The increase in weekly carloads is likely due to an increase in coal production. The US Energy Information Administration said Thursday that coal production in the week ended Saturday totaled an estimated 19.3 million st, up 3.2% from the prior week and up 5% from the year-ago week.

For the year, US coal carloads totaled roughly 4.8 million, up 0.3% from 2013.

Canadian railroads, which includes the US operations of Canadian Pacific -- and Canadian National, which serves several mines in the Illinois Basin -- originated 9,182 coal carloads last week, down 4.3% from the previous week and down 10.2% from the corresponding week of last year, Washington-based AAR said.

Year-to-date originations for the US operations of the two Canadian railroads totaled 393,810 carloads, down 0.8% from last year, AAR said.

For the week, coal carloads for the four largest US railroads, which includes originations and interchange movements, were mixed.

BNSF Railway reported 46,008 weekly coal carloads, up 0.2% from the prior week and up 3.1% from last year. For the year, the railroad's coal carloads were up 1.2% from last year.

Union Pacific reported 34,926 weekly coal carloads, up 5% from the prior week and 14.9% from a year ago. Year-to-date coal carloads are up 3.5% from last year.

CSX reported 23,772 weekly coal carloads, up 9.6% from the prior week and 14.8% above a year ago. For the year, coal carloads are up 4.8%.

Norfolk Southern reported 21,285 weekly coal carloads, up 1% from the prior week, but down 13.7% from 2013. For the year, coal carloads are down 5.8% from last year.

--Andrew Moore, andrew.moore@platts.com
--Edited by Jeff Barber, jeff.barber@platts.com

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