Total U.S. coal rail traffic for the week ended June 2 dropped 7.7% year over year to 76,242 carloads, according to data from the Association of American Railroads.
Year-to-date coal rail traffic increased by less than 1% through the week, while total rail traffic climbed 3.2% year over year to 509,740 carloads and intermodal units.

BNSF Railway Co.'s coal shipment volumes clocked in at 30,841 carloads in the week ended June 2, slipping 12.1% from last week's 35,067 carloads and down 13.9% compared to 35,826 carloads in the year-ago week.
Union Pacific Corp.'s coal shipment volumes this week were at 19,037 carloads, up 8.9% from 17,488 carloads last week but down 13.5% from 2017's weekly volume of 21,997 carloads.
Eastern railroad CSX Transportation Inc.'s shipment volumes of coal stood at 15,070 carloads, decreasing by about 15% from last week's 17,720 carloads and down 6.7% from 16,156 carloads during the same week in 2017.
Norfolk Southern Corp.'s coal shipment volumes totaled 18,021 carloads for the week, down 9.5% from the prior week's 19,906 carloads and falling 2.9% from 18,566 carloads in the comparative week a year ago.
Kansas City Southern Railway Co.'s latest weekly coal shipment volume showed 2,329 carloads, down 4.9% from 2,448 carloads the previous week. The railroad serves 10 U.S. states and Mexico.
US coal production drops 9.5% YOY
According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, total U.S. coal production for the week fell 9.5% year over year to 13.4 million tons, compared to 14.8 million tons during the same period in 2017.
For the 52 weeks ended June 2, production was reported at 766.2 million tons, representing a decrease of 2.2% year over year, while year-to-date coal output dropped 1.8% year over year to 316.4 million tons.
The western region's coal production for the week reached 7.3 million tons, down 7.2% compared to the 7.8 million tons reported in the same week a year ago. Data for the Western region covers Powder River Basin mines.
Coal production from Appalachian mines posted an 11.5% drop year over year to 3.6 million tons from 4.0 million tons a year ago.
The interior region's production numbers fell 12.9% year over year to 2.5 million tons, from 2.9 million tons the previous year. Interior region data covers mines in the Illinois Basin.
The EIA's production data is derived from rail carload estimates.
Data collected by S&P Global Market Intelligence from railroads indicates both cars originated on their lines during the week and cars received from a connecting railroad during the same week.
