Unfortunately, COVID is not going away quietly and with vaccination rates at our locations ranging anywhere from 22% to 76%, we need to continue to practice good behaviors to keep our people safe.
In addition, our $250 vaccination incentive remains in place.
Our operation was down for a total of 11 days as Wildcat Fire Services arrive to fight the fires and keep our people and our facilities safe.
On Slide 10 through 15, we have a number of notable happenings that have occurred in the past quarter.
Let's start on Slide 17, that shows consolidated sales were $441 million, an increase of sales from $437 million in the prior year.
Sales for RUPS were $196 million, down from $210 million.
PC sales rose to $146 million, up from $137 million, and CM&C sales came in at $100 million, up from $90 million.
Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $66 million or approximately 15%, up from $60 million or 14% in the prior year.
Compared to the prior year, adjusted EBITDA for RUPS was $12 million, down from $23 million.
PC EBITDA rose to $35 million, up from $29 million, and CM&C EBITDA improved to $19 million, up from $7 million.
On Slide 19, sales for RUPS were $196 million and declined from $210 million in the prior year.
Adjusted EBITDA for RUPS was $12 million in the quarter compared with $23 million in the prior year.
On Slide 21, sales for PC were $146 million in the quarter compared to sales of $137 million in the prior year.
On Slide 22, adjusted EBITDA for PC was $35 million compared with $29 million in the prior year.
Slide 23 shows CM&C sales at $100 million for the quarter compared to sales of $90 million in the prior year.
Adjusted EBITDA for CM&C was $19 million in the quarter compared to $7 million in the prior year.
As seen on Slide 26, at the end of June, we had $760 million of net debt with $330 million in available liquidity.
We continue to project $30 million of debt reduction for 2021 and expect to be at a 3.1 times to 3.2 times net leverage ratio by year-end.
Our net leverage ratio dropped to 3.2 times at June 30, down from 3.5 times at December 31, 2020, and it also showed a significant decline from 4.5 times in the prior year quarter.
Lumber futures are currently trading at 1/3 of their peak from mid-May, and everyone is still a little skittish as to where things are going in the near term.
To provide some perspective, while our Q2 was a record sales and adjusted EBITDA quarter for PC, we did see a 17% drop in sales from May to June and even more pronounced drop in EBITDA for that period as business pulled back.
Existing home sales in June increased 1.4% from May, marking sales higher than prior year by 22.9%, with all four major U.S. regions experiencing double-digit year-over-year gains according to the National Association of Realtors.
The leading indicator of remodeling activity states that spending on home renovation repairs will reach 8.6% annual growth and surpass $380 billion by mid-2022.
And in July, the Consumer Confidence Index stands at 129.1, the highest level since February of 2020, with consumer spending expected to support robust economic growth in the second half of this year.
We've experienced this phenomenon a couple of times over the past seven to 10 years, and we'll need to ride it out as supply demand either normalizes, crosstie pricing moves up or some combination of the 2.
The Railway Tie Association, for example, forecast 2021 demand for crossties at $18.9 million or four percent -- 4.7% growth and $19.5 million in 2022 or 3.2% growth, driven by the commercial market.
The American Association of Railroads reports total year-over-year U.S. carload traffic increased 9.4%.
Intermodal units increased 17.5% and combined carloads and intermodal units increased by 13.7%.
Slide 32 outlines our maintenance-of-way segment, where we've accumulated a 50% higher backlog than prior year projects and railroad structures in 2021.
Light vehicle production worldwide is expected to grow 50% in the second quarter according to IHS Markit, but supply issues around semiconductors have not been resolved.
On Slide 36, our sales forecast for 2021 remains in the range of $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion compared with $1.67 billion in the prior year.
Due to improved end market dynamics, CM&C is expected to see a seven percent to 15% top line increase this year, while both RUPS and PC could be anywhere from two percent to three percent positive or negative.
On Slide 37, we're holding our EBITDA projections for 2021 to a range of $220 million to $230 million compared with $211 million in the prior year.
On Slide 38, the EBITDA estimate to adjusted earnings per share guidance of $4.35 to $4.60 per share is unchanged from prior year's quarter -- from prior quarter's guidance and compares favorably to the prior year adjusted earnings per share of $4.12.
Finally, on Slide 39, our capital expenditures were $60.9 million year-to-date through June 30 or $55.8 million, net of the $5.1 million in cash proceeds.
We remain on-track to spend a net amount of $80 million to $90 million on capital expenditures, with half of that dedicated to growth and productivity projects that are expected to generate $8 million to $12 million of annualized benefits.
Beyond this year, I remain excited about the many opportunities we have to further build upon our integrated business model, focused on wooden infrastructure and looking forward to sharing the details of how we believe we can continue to take Koppers to over $300 million of EBITDA generation by the end of 2025 at our upcoming September 13 Investor Day.

Summary:
Let's start on Slide 17, that shows consolidated sales were $441 million, an increase of sales from $437 million in the prior year.
On Slide 36, our sales forecast for 2021 remains in the range of $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion compared with $1.67 billion in the prior year.
On Slide 38, the EBITDA estimate to adjusted earnings per share guidance of $4.35 to $4.60 per share is unchanged from prior year's quarter -- from prior quarter's guidance and compares favorably to the prior year adjusted earnings per share of $4.12.