Total Canadian rail freight tonnage increased 5.3% in October

Freight originating in Canada was up 6.3% while freight received from the United States dropped 4%.

Statistics Canada announced that the country’s railways carried a total of 34.7 million tonnes of freight in October, up 5.3% from the same month a year earlier.

The Federal agency reports that total rail freight originating in Canada rose 6.3% from the same month last year to 31.5 million tonnes in October.

Canadian non-intermodal freight increased by 9.4% to 345,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars rose 7.0% from October 2017 to 28.3 million tonnes. The commodities with the largest increases in tonnage were fuel oils and crude petroleum (87.3%), other cereal grains (47.9%), wheat (10.1%), fertilizers (58.3%), and gasoline and aviation turbine fuel (55.8%). Conversely, tonnages declined for other oil seeds, nuts and other agricultural products (-42.4%), iron ores and concentrates (-4.9%), and lumber (-6.9%).

Intermodal freight loadings rose 2.2% from October 2017 to 219,000 units. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic increased 0.8% to 3.2 million tonnes.

Freight traffic received from the United States fell 4.0% to 3.2 million tonnes, as a result of a 4.9% decrease in non-intermodal freight.