Rail Freight Tonnage Up in August

OTTAWA - Oct 29/14 - SNS -- Canadian railways carried 29.5 million metric tons (MT) of freight in August, up 3.3% from the same month last year, according to Statistics Canada.

Increased shipments of wheat and canola, which were influenced by recent grain transportation regulations, helped offset a decline in shipments received from the United States.

Domestic rail freight originating in Canada and destined within Canada and other parts of the world rose 6.0% to 26.2 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 rose 5.0% to 285,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars totalled 23.4 million MT, up 6.0%. The increase was attributable to gains in several commodity groupings, particularly wheat (up 839 000 MT), canola (up 536 000 MT) and fuel oils and crude petroleum (up 306 000 MT).

Intermodal freight loadings rose 7.2% to 189,000 units in August. From a tonnage perspective, traffic grew 6.0% to 2.7 million MT. The gain stemmed from increases in both containerized cargo shipments and trailers loaded on flat cars.

Traffic received from the United States fell 13.6% to 3.4 million MT. The decline was attributable to decreased non-intermodal and intermodal shipments.