This is obviously "fake news". This is probably part of the vast conspiracy by the AAR to collect independently collected and verifiable "data", and use "statistics" to analyze that "data", to determine carloadings, which may reflect a weaker and/or slowing economy.

These numbers appear also to reflect PSR, being able to drive off what now monopoly carriers feel are customers that don't provide sufficient "return on investment", the spring flooding affecting parts of the "farm belt" (which may make for lower fall number", and the fact that private sector total US investment in new plant and equipment have been less than the rate of national plant and equipment "depreciation" now for 2 years.

Investment in new plant and equipment is below replacement, despite the largest corporate tax cut in history (that seems mostly to have gone into stock buybacks to keep "short term" valuations "up"). Net foreign investment in new US plant and equipment has fallen by 80% over the last 3 year, because of trade issues, and a fear that foreign investment (private property owned by non-citizens) may no longer be "secure" in the United States.

But, this report is obviously "fake news"... God, just this morning, tweeted that the economy is great....and then God blamed the Federal Reserve, just in case it isn't great....

I've heard (from those voices that leak into God's brain through the tinfoil hat) that coal loading has secretly increased by over 1000% in the last 3 years, and the evil AAR is hiding the truth from us....

Soon we'll be mining the Greenland coal, too... Maybe, we can build a RR across the ice cap to haul it out? Evil Canada will probably oppose that... They hate America, just like those evil Danes....