Railcar Loading Down in January

OTTAWA - Mar 22/05 - SNS -- Freight hauled y Canada's railways declined in January, with business dipping in most commodity groups. reports Statistics Canada.

Railways loadings fell 5.5% to 21.8 million metric tons (MT) in January following a 7.0% decline in December.

Loadings of wheat, other cereal grains and colza combined fell by about 350,000 MT, while sulphur and other non metallic minerals came in 160,000 MT below December's levels. Loadings of alumina fell by 117,000 MT and forest products lost about 173,000 MT. Overall loadings went down by about 1.2 millions MT.

Non-intermodal loadings totalled 19.7 million MT, down 5.8% from December. About 248,000 carloads were required to carry the non-intermodal freight in January.

Loadings of intermodal freight, that is, containers and trailers hauled on flat cars, fell 2.1% to 2.1 million MT.

In January, freight arriving from the United States, either destined for or passing through Canada, totalled 2.3 million MT, down 1.2% from December.

Compared with January 2004, non-intermodal loadings were up 4.9%, while intermodal rose 5.0%. Traffic received from the United States was up 5.3% over the same period.