Rail Volume Dips in September

OTTAWA - Dec 1/16 - SNS -- Freight handled by Canadian railways dipped 1.6% below last year in September, totalling 29.8 million metric tons (MT), according to Statistics Canada.

Non-intermodal freight declined 1.6% to 295,343 carloads in September. The amount of freight loaded into these cars totalled 24.4 million MT, down 2.2% from the same month last year.

Tonnages of iron ores and concentrates (-12.4%), fuel oils and crude petroleum (-38.5%), other chemical products and preparations (-47.0%), iron and steel-primary or semi-finished (-34.5%) and colza seeds (-9.8%) shipped by rail declined in September on a year-over-year basis.

In comparison, tonnages of coal (+17.4%), fresh, chilled or dried vegetables (+36.5%) and other oil seeds and nuts and other agricultural products (+64.8%) were up in September compared with the same month last year.

Intermodal freight loadings rose 2.3% to just over 189,000 units between September 2015 and September 2016. The 2.7% increase in containers-on-flat-cars offset the 13.7% decline in trailers-on-flat-cars. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic increased 3.9% to 2.8 million MT.

Freight traffic received from the United States fell 1.2% to 2.6 million MT as a result of a 2.3% decrease in non-intermodal freight, while intermodal freight from the United States increased 10.2%.