Rail Freight Traffic Jumped in May

OTTAWA - Jul 30/14 - SNS -- Rail freight movement increased in May, rising 7% over the same month last year to reach 31.4 million metric tons (MT) in May due to higher volumes of domestic freight as well as traffic received from the United States, according to Statistics Canada.

Domestic rail freight originating in Canada and destined within Canada and other parts of the world increased 5.4% to 27.5 million MT. These shipments are composed of non-intermodal freight (that is, cargo moved via box cars or loaded in bulk) and intermodal freight (that is, cargo moved via containers and trailers on flat cars).

Non-intermodal freight advanced 5.1% to 300,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars totalled 24.7 million MT, up 5.2%. Among the commodity groups that posted the largest increases were those of an agricultural nature. These included wheat (up 951 000 MT) and colza seeds (up 508 000 MT). Other groupings with strong gains included fuel oils and crude petroleum (up 262 000 MT) and coal (up 243 000 MT).

Intermodal freight loadings rose 7.1% to 189,000 units in May. From a tonnage perspective, traffic grew 6.8% to 2.9 million MT. The gain stemmed from increases in both containerized cargo shipments and trailers loaded on flat cars.

Traffic received from the United States increased a robust 20.0% to 3.8 million MT. The rise in tonnage was brought on solely by increased shipments of non-intermodal freight.