Canadian rail freight volume up 7.2% in November

Freight originating in Canada rose 8.8% and freight received from the United States fell 7.5%.

Statistics Canada announced that the country’s railways carried a total of 33.8 million tonnes of freight in November, up 7.2% from the same month a year earlier.

The Federal agency reports that total rail freight originating in Canada rose 8.8% from the same month in 2017 to 30.8 million tonnes in November.

Non-intermodal freight increased 9.6% to 337,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars rose 10.2% from November 2017 to 27.7 million tonnes. The commodities with the largest increase were fuel oils and crude petroleum (93.9%), coal (24.0%), potash (16.9%), other cereal grains (48.7%) and fresh, chilled or dried vegetables (153.2%). Tonnages declined for other oil seeds, nuts and other agricultural products (-32.8%), iron ores and concentrates ( -4.3%) and lumber (-6.2%).

Canadian intermodal freight rose 1.5% from November 2017 to 214,000 units. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic decreased 1.8% to 3.2 million tonnes.

Freight traffic received from the United States fell 7.5% to 3.0 million tonnes as a result of a 8.2% decrease in non-intermodal freight.