Kevin Boone
Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at CSX
Thank you, Mike. As Joe referenced, we are really seeing a lot of positive momentum, particularly around sales and marketing collaborating with operations. Highlighting these initiatives are the market reviews where our teams come together to discuss and evaluate opportunities to collaborate on operational efficiencies while delivering new solutions to target profitable business. Driving network efficiencies allows us to deliver a more competitive service product and expand the opportunity for growth. We are continuing to be very aggressive in pushing forward on our truck conversions, new industrial development projects and creative solutions with the growing number of shippers who want to maximize their use of CSX rail.
As you've heard from a number of our peers and competitors across the transportation industry over these past weeks, the trucking market remains challenged and industrial markets are mixed as we move into the second half of the year. Accumulating effects of interest rates, including a sluggish housing market and fluctuating commodity prices creates headwinds for some of the markets we serve. It's a volatile environment where we continue to drive initiatives to accelerate modal share and expand CSX's addressable market.
Let's turn to Slide 7 and look at our merchandise performance. We had a great result with revenues up 5% on a 1% increase in volume. RPU was higher by 4% even with fuel surcharge lower year over year as we continue to get pricing results that reflect the strong service that the team is delivering. Throughout the second quarter, our chemicals franchise has performed very well as momentum has persisted in plastics, industrial chemicals, waste and energy markets. Minerals revenues also saw positive results, driven by industrial development wins and our unique network access into the southeast markets, including Florida, where we see a multi-year glide path for growth.
Our Forest Products business began to accelerate, driven by demand and pulp board and recent wins in the northeast portion of our network. We've been developing some very promising strategic partnerships in this market to take advantage of the capacity that our network has available, which puts us in a good position to gain more truck share as the housing market rebounds.
Our Automotive business saw 4% revenue growth, leveraging our strong service products deliver a competitive win with a key customer. Less favorable this quarter was metals, where high inventories and expectations of weaker steel prices weighed on volumes. This is probably the market with the most near-term uncertainty as we watch trends in coil plate and scrap prices for a recovery. Fertilizer volumes continue to be hurt by phosphate production issues here in Florida. As in past quarters, lower volumes of this short haul of business does have a favorable mix effect on the total fertilizer RPU. And Ag and Food remains soft on unfavorable regional crop supply dynamics. So we are very encouraged by the fundamentals into the back half of the year where we see a weaker southeastern crop, leading to incremental opportunities for growth.
For the remainder of the year, despite a sluggish economy and persistently weak trucking market, we expect to capitalize on our best-in-class service to deliver growth. Chemicals should remain strong, supported by business wins, steady plastics, and healthy waste moves. We also see opportunities in our Forest Products segment where we see operational focus differentiating us in the market. We're also anticipating a much better second half for our Ag and Food business, with demand supported by larger hog and chicken herds in the southeast, which will need feed grain supplies from the Midwest.
Turning to Slide 8 in the coal business. First, I want to reiterate Joe's comments from the beginning of the call. Our team in Baltimore did a fantastic job of finding creative solutions to move coal after the Key Bridge collapse. Their efforts made a huge difference in reducing the negative impact that this incident had on CSX and the customers we serve. As we highlighted at a conference earlier this spring, operations in Curtis Bay were up and running at the end of May, several weeks ahead of our original projections.
For the quarter, revenues were down 12%. We estimate that without the Key Bridge collapse, the year-over-year decline would have been more in the range of 5%. Volume was down only 3% with the decline driven by domestic shipments largely to utilities. Key here is that our team was able to grow export volume by 8% year over year, which is an extraordinary result given the closure of the port of Baltimore. RPU was 9% lower year over year and 6% lower sequentially, in line with our expectations and driven by export benchmark prices and unfavorable utility mix.
Looking ahead, the key benchmark for high-quality Australian coal remains above $200 per metric ton. Given the lag in our export coal contracts, we expect a mid- to high-single-digit sequential decline for all-in coal RPU in the third quarter. The temporary idling of a recently opened export mine on our network should have little impact on our export volumes as we see strong production offsets at other CSX-served mines.
Just as we did this last quarter, the team is already finding some creative ways to pivot towards other opportunities in the marketplace where we see strong demand for export capacity at our Curtis Bay terminal. On the domestic side, low natural gas prices continue to impact volumes, but we've seen some good signs from the hot summer with several utilities in our service region, maximizing their coal units in response to very strong demand. We've also seen inventory levels moderate from the highs seen earlier in the year.
Finally, turning to intermodal on Slide 9. Revenue increased 3% on 5% volume growth. RPU declined 2% as we felt the effects of lower fuel surcharge revenue and negative mix. Our international business drove our volume growth this quarter. supported by higher East Coast import activity and favorable alignment with our steamship-line partners. This has been the trend through the year, and we've been pleased to see customer activity remain solid so far in the third quarter. In contrast, momentum in our domestic intermodal business remains muted as weak trucking conditions persist. The weak trucking market has continued much longer than what was expected coming into the year, but in the meantime, we'll keep pushing hard in a tough environment, leading with our best-in-class service.
All in, the collective team has been capitalizing on opportunities throughout the year, working together to win business and gain share for CSX. With mixed conditions across end markets, we've been able to grow total volume by 3% year to date, while setting ourselves up for more profitable growth over the longer term by demonstrating to our customers that CSX stands apart for our service creativity, efficiency and capacity.
Now, let me turn it over to Sean.
