BNSF Railway and CSX showed big gains in weekly coal deliveries, while Norfolk Southern had no such luck.
US railroads carried 112,672 carloads for the week, an increase of 1.9% from the previous week, bringing an end to an eight-week slump in volumes.
The growth in volume comes despite a lack of domestic coal production, which is down 0.3% compared to the same period last year, according to the Energy Information Administration.
BNSF reported more than 41,000 weekly coal carloads, 4.4% less than the prior week but up 9.4% from the corresponding week in 2013.
The railroad's coal carloads reached 913,757 for 2014 so far, up 6.1% compared with the same period of 2013.
Union Pacific moved 31,668 weekly coal carloads, a small growth of 1.8% from the prior week but down 3% from last year.
Year-to-date UP coal carloads totalled 676,853, an increase of 5.2% from last year.
CSX reported 23,459 weekly coal carloads, an improvement of 12.6% from the prior week and up 9.1% from last year.
For the year so far, coal CSX carloads amounted to 462,620, up 3.1% on the year-on-year comparison.
Norfolk Southern was not as fortunate as the rest of the big four.
The company transported 25,937 weekly coal carloads, a stumble of 0.7% from the prior week and down 1.3% from 2013, while coal carloads for the year to date totalled just shy of half a million, down 8% from last year.
The Canadian railroads, including the US operations of Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, moved 9483 coal carloads during the week, losing 7.7% from the prior week but up 19% from the corresponding week in 2013.