Railways Cast Doubt on ‘Green Shoots Thing’

(The Globe and Mail – Brent Jang)

North America’s leading railways, seen as barometers of economic health because of the goods they haul, don’t see a quick recovery in the works.

Calgary-based Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. CP-T said yesterday [Tuesday] it has seen no evidence of the recession’s bottom, while Montreal-based Canadian National Railway Co. CNR-T fears a false start in the path toward recovery or a double dip, where previous lows will be tested. […]

In the first eight months of this year, the continent’s major freight carriers saw their carloads decrease an average 19.4%, compared with the same period in 2008. The pace of traffic decline is slowing, however, with carloads down 15.7% in the last week of August, compared with the same week last year. As recently as May, carloads fell more than 25% from a year earlier. Read more here.