Canadian rail freight volume increased by 1.1% in August

Intermodal freight loadings rose 3.4% and freight loadings from the U.S. were up 1%

Statistics Canada announced that the country’s railways carried a total of 33.7 million tonnes of freight in August, up 1.1% from the same month a year earlier.

The Federal agency reports that intermodal freight loadings were up 3.4% to 3.2 million tonnes compared with August 2018.

Freight traffic coming from the US rail connections rose 1.0% to 3.8 million tonnes.

Over the same period, the non-intermodal freight loadings (carloads) in Canada grew 0.8% to 26.7 million tonnes. The main contributors to this increase were loadings of coal (+14.7%), followed by colza seeds (+79.6%), fuel oils and crude petroleum (+13.5%) and iron ores and concentrates (+4.0%). Moderating this growth were notable decreases in wheat (-12.9%), other cereal grains (-59.8%), potash (-10.2%) and lumber (-19.2%).