Rail Car Shortage Slows New-Car Deliveries

A rough winter, a shrinking rail car fleet and shifting production patterns across North America have slowed the movement of new vehicles to U.S. dealerships, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Assn. of American Railroads figures there are 158,100 finished cars on the ground awaiting rail transport, more than twice the target volume, according to the Journal. The inventory at the beginning of April was 182,000 vehicles.

Experts tell the newspaper that the logjam is beginning to clear but may not be back to normal until early summer. In the meantime, some carmakers are using trucks, which are usually limited to deliveries within 300 miles, for longer hauls.

Sales of light vehicles in the U.S. surged from 10.4 million in 2009 to 15.6 million last year. Over the same period, the number of rail car auto carriers fell from about 58,000 to 53,000.

Last winter's unusually cold temperatures raised the number of trains hauling coal to electric powerplants, thus clogging railways. Analysts say a sharp rise in the use of trains to carry crude oil also has added to the traffic jam.

The pattern of shipments has changed too, the Journal points out. Decades ago trains carried U.S.-made cars to the West Coast and brought back imported Japanese cars. Now railroads send empty carriers to Mexico to pick up cars made there, but routes now run through the South, making them longer.