February 27, 2019

Canadian rail freight volume up 6.5% in December

Statistics Canada announced that the country's railways carried a total of 32.7 million tonnes of freight in December, up 6.5% from the same month a year earlier.

The Federal agency reports that total rail freight originating in Canada was up 9% from the same month in 2017 to 30.0 million tonnes in December.

Non-intermodal freight increased 9.8% to 327,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars rose 10.3% from December 2017 to 27.1 million tonnes. Commodities with the largest increase in tonnage were fuel oils and crude petroleum (83.7%), wheat (31.7%), iron ores and concentrates (7.5%), potash (18.5%) and fresh, chilled or dried vegetables (155.3%). Tonnages declined for other oil seeds, nuts and other agricultural products (-64.0%), canola (-25.3%) and lumber (-14.4%).

Intermodal freight loadings rose 2.2% from December 2017 to 199,000 units. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic decreased 1.9% to 2.9 million tonnes.

Freight traffic received from the United States fell 14.9% to 2.6 million tonnes, as a result of a 16.4% decrease in non-intermodal freight.