According to the Railway Supply Institute’s American Railway Car Institue (ARCI) Committee, railcar orders were up almost 92 percent in first quarter 2013 from comparable deliveries in the first quarter of 2012. However deliveries in the first quarter were down 29 percent compared to last year’s first quarter deliveries.
Tank cars accounted for 81 percent of total railcar orders in the first quarter of 2013, this is the highest number of tank car orders since the ARCI started providing data by car type in the first quarter of 2007. The analysts from KeyBanc Capital Marketing, Steve Barge and Tejas Petal, say the increase may be reflective of both the explosive growth in shale oil production as well as the weak volume environment for other commodity types
