The daily volume of non-refrigerated intermodal containers moving in the United States and Canada. The data is broken out as follows:
Direction of travel

• • Inbound to a market e.g. Chicago or CHI
    • The letter “I” will be the first letter in the ticker i.e. IRAIL20L.CHI
  • Outbound from a market e.g. Chicago or CHI
    • The letter “O” will be the first letter in the ticker i.e. ORAIL20L.CH

Container Length

• • There are five container lengths – 20’, 40’, 45’, 48’ and 53’ which appear after the word “RAIL” in the ticker
    • A loaded 20’ container inbound to Chicago would be IRAIL20L.CHI

Loaded or empty

• • A container will have the letter “L” or “E” as the last character in the ticker to designate whether the container is loaded or empty
    • A loaded 20’ container inbound to Chicago would be IRAIL20L.CHI

Origin-destination pairing (OD pairing)

• • Outbound – the volume of loaded 20’ containers moving daily from one market to another can be calculated as follows:
    • Chicago to Atlanta would be ORAIL20L.CHIATL

Volume compared to past year, month, week or fortnight

• • The tickers ORAILLW, ORAILLF, ORAILLM, and ORAILLY display the data compared to one week ago, one fortnight ago, one month ago and one year ago, respectively.
  • These tickers can be used in aggregate (e.g., ORAILLY.USA), outbound from a particular destination (e.g., ORAILLY.CHI) or between an origin-destination pair (e.g., ORAILLY.LAXDAL)
  • The year-ago comparison in ORAILLY helps for analysts to compare trends versus one year ago, removing the impact of seasonality
  • In any of the above tickers, the final “L” can be replaced with “E” (such as ORAILEY) to denote empty containers rather than loaded containers – that is helpful for intermodal providers in determining where empty containers can be sourced

Volume compared to past year, month, week or fortnight

• • The tickers ORAILW, ORAILF, ORAILM, and ORAILY display the data compared to one week ago, one fortnight ago, one month ago and one year ago, respectively.
  • These tickers can be used in aggregate (e.g., ORAILY.USA), outbound from a particular destination (e.g., ORAILY.CHI) or between an origin-destination pair (e.g., ORAILY.LAXDAL)
  • The year-ago comparison in ORAILY helps for analysts to compare trends versus one year ago, removing the impact of seasonality

Year-over-year changes specific to the domestic and international intermodal markets

• ORAILDOMLY is the year-over-year change specific to the movement of domestic intermodal containers
  • Similarly, ORAIL53LY is the year-over-year change in the movement of loaded 53’ domestic intermodal containers
  • The ORAILDOMLY and ORAIL53LY data series are intended to help financial analysts evaluate the publicly traded domestic intermodal marketing companies (i.e., J.B. Hunt, Hub Group, and Schneider)
• ORAIL40LY is the year-over-year change specific to the movement of international 40’ containers.
  • 40’ container movements are performed by the railroad on behalf of shipping lines and a separate market from 53’/domestic container movements.

Country Volume

• • United States
    • Using the same example above, the total volume of outbound 20’ loaded intermodal containers in the U.S. would be ORAIL20L.USA
  • Canada
    • Using the same example above, the total volume of outbound 20’ loaded intermodal containers in Canada would be ORAIL20L.CAN

International Routes

• Canada: ORAIL.USACAN and ORAIL.CANUSA
• Mexico: ORAIL.USAMEX and ORAIL.MEXUSA

• SONAR allows you to compare volumes between countries:

Canada Lanes

• • For container moves from the U.S. to Canada
    • the ticker would be ORAIL20E.CHIMNT

1. Using the same Chicago example above to determine the volume of outbound 20’ loaded containers moving from Chicago to Montreal

Mexico Lanes

• For container moves from the U.S. to Mexico
• the ticker would be ORAIL20E.CHIMXC
  • Using the same Chicago example above to determine the volume of outbound 20’ loaded containers moving from Chicago to Mexico City

Volume Changes

• SONAR also allows you to look at the change in intermodal volumes, weekly, fortnightly, quarterly and yearly.
• Weekly – RTOIT
• Monthly – MORAIL20E, MORAIL40E, MORAIL45E, MORAIL48E, MORAIL53E, MIRAILL, MIRAILE, MORAILL, and MORAILE