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Coal Unit Train Loadings
internal.agtransport.usda.gov | Last Updated 2024-06-14T14:01:28.000ZWeekly actual and planned coal loadings from the Surface Transportation Board's (STB) Rail Service Metrics. Railroads provide the average daily count (per week) of unit train coal traffic from major coal producing regions. They have the option of providing this metric on a train- or carload basis. For example, BNSF reports the average daily loadings for the week of coal unit trains. CSX, on the other hand, reports on a carload basis. Data are broken out by coal production region.
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Grain Prices
internal.agtransport.usda.gov | Last Updated 2024-06-13T16:07:33.000ZPrices are a fundamental component of exchange and have long been important to the functioning of agricultural markets. Grain prices are closely related to grain transportation, where the supply and demand for grain simultaneously determines both the price of grain, as well as the demand for grain transportation. This data has corn, soybean, and wheat prices for a variety of locations. These include origins—such as Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and many others—and destinations, such as the Pacific Northwest, Louisiana Gulf, Texas Gulf, and Atlantic Coast. The data come from three sources: USDA-AMS Market News price reports, GeoGrain, and U.S. Wheat Associates. Links are included below. GeoGrain offers granular data for purchase. The GeoGrain data here is an average of those granular prices for a given state (and the "Southeast" region, which combines Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama). This is one of three companion datasets. The other two are grain basis (https://agtransport.usda.gov/d/v85y-3hep) and grain price spreads (https://agtransport.usda.gov/d/an4w-mnp7). These datasets are separate, because the coverage lengths differ and missing values are removed (e.g., there needs to be a cash price and a futures price to have a basis price).
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Grain Basis
internal.agtransport.usda.gov | Last Updated 2024-06-13T16:06:33.000ZBasis reflects both local and global supply and demand forces. It is calculated as the difference between the local cash price and the futures price. It affects when and where many grain producers and shippers buy and sell grain. Many factors affect basis—such as local supplies, storage and transportation availability, and global demand—and they interact in complex ways. How changes in basis manifest in transportation is likewise complex and not always direct. For instance, an increase in current demand will drive cash prices up relative to future prices, and increase basis. At the same time, grain will enter the transportation system to fulfill that demand. However, grain supplies also affect basis, but will have the opposite effect on transportation. During harvest, the increase in the supply of grain pushes down cash prices relative to futures prices, and basis weakens, but the demand for transportation increases to move the supplies. For more information on how basis is linked to transportation, see the story, "Grain Prices, Basis, and Transportation" (https://agtransport.usda.gov/stories/s/sjmk-tkh6), and links below for research on the topic. This data has corn, soybean, and wheat basis for a variety of locations. These include origins—such as Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and many others—and destinations, such as the Pacific Northwest, Louisiana Gulf, Texas Gulf, and Atlantic Coast. This is one of three companion datasets. The other two are grain prices (https://agtransport.usda.gov/d/g92w-8cn7) and grain price spreads (https://agtransport.usda.gov/d/an4w-mnp7). These datasets are separate, because the coverage lengths differ and missing values are removed (e.g., there needs to be a cash price and a futures price to have a basis price). The cash price comes from the grain prices dataset and the futures price comes from the appropriate futures market, which is Chicago Board of Trade (CME Group) for corn, soybeans, and soft red winter wheat; Kansas City Board of Trade (CME Group) for hard red winter wheat; and the Minneapolis Grain Exchange for hard red spring wheat.
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Commodity Price Spreads
internal.agtransport.usda.gov | Last Updated 2024-06-13T16:06:19.000ZThe data shows grain prices at select inland origin points and export destination ports and the price spread between them. More specifically, this dataset compares interior prices of corn in Illinois and Nebraska with the Gulf; Iowa and Gulf soybean prices; Kansas and Gulf hard red winter wheat; and North Dakota and Portland hard red spring wheat.
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Latest Week of Grain Basis Data
internal.agtransport.usda.gov | Last Updated 2024-06-13T16:06:33.000ZThis filtered view pulls the latest week of data from the Grain Basis dataset.
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Grain Price Spreads
internal.agtransport.usda.gov | Last Updated 2024-06-13T16:06:37.000ZA "spread" can have multiple meanings, but it generally implies a difference between two comparable measures. These can be differences across space, across time, or across anything with a similar attribute. For example, in the stock market, there is a spread between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept. In this dataset, spread refers to differences in prices between two locations, an origin (e.g., Illinois, Iowa, etc.) and a destination (e.g., Louisiana Gulf, Pacific Northwest, etc.). Mathematically, it is the destination price minus the origin price. Price spreads are closely linked to transportation. They tend to reflect the costs of moving goods from one point to another, all else constant. Fluctuations in spreads can change the flow of goods (where it may be more profitable to ship to a different location), as well as indicate changes in transportation availability (e.g., disruptions). For more information on how price spreads are linked to transportation, see the story, "Grain Prices, Basis, and Transportation" (https://agtransport.usda.gov/stories/s/sjmk-tkh6). This is one of three companion datasets. The other two are grain prices (https://agtransport.usda.gov/d/g92w-8cn7) and grain basis (https://agtransport.usda.gov/d/v85y-3hep). These datasets are separate, because the coverage lengths differ and missing values are removed (e.g., there needs to be a cash price and a futures price to have a basis price, and there needs to be both an origin and a destination to have a price spread). The origin and destination prices come from the grain prices dataset.
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Public Use Carload Waybill Sample
internal.agtransport.usda.gov | Last Updated 2024-05-22T16:17:22.000ZThe Surface Transportation Board's Carload Waybill Sample is perhaps the most comprehensive dataset available on railroad movements and trends. More technically, it is a stratified sample of carload waybills for all U.S. rail traffic submitted by those rail carriers terminating 4,500 or more revenue carloads annually. See 49 C.F.R. §§ 1244.1 to 1244.5. Waybill data have broad applications and usage in national railroad policy and regulations, such as rate cases, costing systems, productivity studies, exemption decisions, and analyses supporting regulations. Waybill data are used by transportation practitioners, consultants, and law firms in preparing verified statements to be submitted in formal proceedings before the Board or other public agencies. Various federal agencies use the Waybill Sample as part of their informational and decision-making framework, and many states use it as a source of information for developing state transportation plans. STB creates the Public Use Waybill file from the confidential Waybill Sample file. See the attached documents for more information. The "Reference Guide" document contains additional details on the variables and Standard Transportation Commodity Codes (STCC). In the "Creation of the Public Use Waybill Sample" document, STB provides more detail on the public use sample and how it is created. There is also a map of Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Areas and a document describing the Waybill sampling instructions.
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Latest Week of Grain Price Spreads Data
internal.agtransport.usda.gov | Last Updated 2024-06-13T16:06:37.000ZThis table derives from the grain price spreads data. It includes the latest week of data, as well as averages and standard deviations of price spreads over the past year for each commodity, origin, and destination combination. An indicator is calculated as a ratio, where the numerator is the difference between this week's price spread and the associated average price spread, and the denominator is the associated standard deviation.
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Rail Cars Not Moved
internal.agtransport.usda.gov | Last Updated 2024-06-14T14:01:30.000ZWeekly "cars held" data from the Surface Transportation Board's (STB) Rail Service Metrics. As part of their submission to the STB, railroads provide data on the average daily number of loaded and empty cars, operating in normal movement and billed to an origin or destination, which have not moved in more than 48 hours. The data is broken out by service type: intermodal, grain, coal, crude oil, automotive, ethanol, fertilizer, or all other. In order to derive the daily averages for the reporting week, carriers are requested to run a same-time snapshot each day of the reporting week, capturing cars within each category that have not moved in 48 hours or more. The number of cars captured on the daily snapshot for each category should be added, and then divided by the number of days in the reporting week (typically seven days). In deriving this data, carriers should include cars in normal service anywhere on their system, but should not include cars placed at a customer facility; in constructive placement; placed for interchange to another carrier; in bad order status; in storage; or operating in railroad service (e.g., ballast). Fertilizer is defined by the following 14 Standard Transportation Commodity Codes (STCCs): 2871236, 2871235, 2871238, 2819454, 2812534, 2818426, 2819815, 2818170, 2871315, 2818142, 2818146, 2871244, 2819173, and 2871451. STCC 287 covers agricultural chemicals and STCC 281 covers industrial inorganic or organic chemicals (excluding pesticides).
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Grain Vessel Loading Activity
internal.agtransport.usda.gov | Last Updated 2024-06-06T17:23:59.000ZThis data describes the weekly ocean-going grain vessel loading activity in the U.S. Gulf and the Pacific Northwest. This data is collected weekly from the local grain export elevators.