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SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD

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Rail Service Data

The Surface Transportation Board requires Class I rail carriers to provide weekly reports containing data on rail service performance. These reports, which also include data pertaining to the Chicago gateway, allow both the agency and the public to have greater real-time visibility into the performance of the Class I industry. The weekly reports filed by the Class I rail carriers can be found below. In addition to the individual carrier reports, the Board has created a spreadsheet of consolidated service performance data for all Class I rail carriers.

Note: The Board issued a final rule in Petition for Rulemaking to Amend 49 C.F.R. Part 1250, Docket No. EP 724 (Sub-No. 5), amending its railroad performance data reporting rules to include certain chemical and plastics traffic as a distinct reporting category to the Class I railroads’ weekly reporting for the “cars-held” metric. The final rule is available here.

Individual Carrier Performance Data

  • System avg. train speed by train type and overall system train speed
  • Weekly avg. terminal dwell time and overall system dwell time
  • Car online by car type
  • Weekly avg. dwell time at origin for unit trains by train type
  • Weekly avg. number of trains held per day by train type and cause
  • Weekly avg. number of loaded/empty cars not moved in 48 hour+
  • Weekly total grain cars loaded and billed by state and service
  • Grain cars: cars ordered, car orders filled, cars past due
  • Grain trains: plan vs. performance

 

  • Coal trains: plan vs. performance
  • Weekly carload originated and received by commodity

 

Data Concerning the Chicago Gateway

  • The avg. daily car counts in Chicago yards
  • The avg. daily number of trains held short of Chicago
  • Summary of the protocols/alert levels used by the Chicago Transportation Coordination Office and notification when the alert levels are changed

Notes on recent changes to reporting data

Please be advised that Union Pacific Railroad Company (UPRR) restated its weekly data for the “Trains Held” metric, 49 C.F.R. 1250.2(a)(5), for weeks 1 through 14 of 2024 in order to achieve consistency with UPRR’s historical approach to reporting data for this metric. UPRR’s reporting for week 15 of 2024 and going forward will be consistent with its historical approach. An individual weekly file containing the restated “Trains Held” data has been uploaded for each respective reporting week. The consolidated spreadsheet for All Class I Railroads has been updated to incorporate UPRR’s restated weekly data.

BNSF recently noted an error in their data.  Table for item #7 (grain loadings) recorded some very occasional grain shipments that were waybilled to Alaska reflecting unusual but real-world routing.  When this happened, it would get pulled in their old query and it would shift the data in this table off one cell.  BNSF has adjusted their data query so that this issue can no longer occur and the reporting for the identified states is accurate.  These changes are now reflected in the updated individual files for the following dates (04/17/2019, 05/01/2019, 05/15/2019, 05/22/2019, 06/17/2020, 07/22/2020, 09/30/2020), as well as the consolidated file starting December 17, 2020.

As of November 11, 2020, the Chicago Terminal weekly report will no longer include data for terminal forecast indicators cars enroute (through no I/C) and subtotal no I/C field.  It was determined that data for cars enroute (through no I/C) cannot be collected at this time.  Accordingly, those two fields will no longer be included in the weekly report.

Beginning with the report filed with the Board on October 14, 2020, KCSR adjusted its methodology to capture all northbound cars for purposes of calculating Laredo Yard average dwell. This more complete data results in a reduction in weekly average dwell in the Laredo Yard terminal. KCSR noticed in September that the weekly average terminal dwell figure for Laredo Yard reported in Item 2 did not match KCSR’s other observations of dwell in that yard. After researching the issue, KCSR determined that dwell for northbound cars was not being captured correctly because northbound cars were identified as being received by KCSR at the International Bridge but as departing from Laredo Yard, and because those points are separate stations, the cars did not register as dwelling at the Laredo Yard station.

Data Methodologies

* Revised in part as of January 24, 2018
** Revised in part as of March 01, 2022
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Frequently Asked Questions

On November 30, 2016, the Board adopted a final rule to establish new regulations requiring all Class I railroads and the Chicago Transportation Coordination Office, through its Class I members, to report certain rail service performance metrics on a weekly, semiannual, and occasional basis. The primary purpose of the rulemaking was to develop a set of performance data that would allow the STB and stakeholders to monitor current service conditions in the industry.

This data can be used to monitor current service conditions in the rail industry and to identify regional or national service disruptions more quickly. It can benefit rail shippers and other stakeholders by helping them to better plan operations and make informed decisions based on publicly available, near real-time data, and their own analysis of performance trends over time.

The railroads are required to submit the data every Wednesday by the close of business. The data is then posted each Thursday by close of business. Updates will be provided in the Rail Service Data page if there are any delays with the data posting process.

The STB publishes the individual service reports provided by the railroads along with the Chicago Transportation Coordination Office performance reports. The STB creates an additional report by consolidating all the data provided in the individual and CTCO reports.

The following formats are available in the STB rail service page: XLSX, PDF. In addition, USDA created a dashboard with data analytics/visualizations using STB’s rail service data. This can be accessed by creating an account in the USDA website: agtransport.usda.gov/login. Users can also create and embed visualizations directly from USDA’s dashboard. The following data formats are available in the USDA dashboard: CSV, RDF, RSS, TSV, XML.

Under 49 CFR 1145.8 the Board requires all Class I carriers to submit weekly reports of:

(1)   the percentage of shipments on the carrier’s system that moved in manifest service and that were delivered within 24 hours of the original estimated time of arrival (OETA), and

(2)   the percentage of planned service windows during which the carrier successfully performed requested local service

OETA data is reported at both the system and operating division level and local service data is reported at the system level.

Time series reports for each Class I railroad and a consolidated file for all carriers can be found below.

BNSF CPKC CSXT GTC NS UP ALL
STB-1145 CSV CSV CSV CSV CSV CSV CSV

Last updated on April 24, 2025

Urgent Issues Rail Service Data

In EP 770 (Sub-No. 1) the Board directed all Class I rail carriers to submit to the Board two broad categories of data for rail service and employment for a six-month period to assess carriers performance amid a challenging supply chain environment.

The Board ended the collection of this service data after December 31, 2023.  The collection of some employment data was extended through December 31, 2025.  The collected employment data can be found here.

  1. The weekly average terminal dwell times, measured in hours, for the carrier’s 11th through 20th largest terminals
  2. The weekly average number of train starts per day by train
  3. Data on the movement and status of privately-owned, TTX-owned, and railroad-owned cars including:
    1. the number of cars in storage.
    2. the number of cars in service with no mileage.
    3. the number of cars with mileage.
    4. the weekly average number of car miles per day.
    5. the aggregate number of car miles per week.
  4. Data about unplanned recrews for each operating division and the system including:
    1. the weekly number of unplanned recrews.
    2. The percentage of total crew starts that were recrewed.
  5. Industry spot and pull data for each operating division and the system.
  6. Data about the causes of local train cancellations for each operating division and for the system:
    1. the weekly average number of local trains cancelled per day.
    2. the aggregate number of local trains cancelled per week, broken down by cause (crew, locomotive power, or other).
  7. On time performance data for the following types of service:
    1. Rail cars moving in manifest service.
    2. Certain types of unit trains (grain unit, coal unit, automotive unit, crude oil unit, and ethanol unit).
    3. Intermodal traffic

The weekly data collected in EP 770 are available here.

The carriers’ methodology documents can be found in their May 18, 2022 filings.

Who should I contact for questions related to this data?  

If you would like to submit an issue or question related to the rail service data in this page, please contact us by calling 202-245-0286, or by emailing .


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