Little Change in Rail Freight Volume

OTTAWA - Nov 27/14 - SNS -- There was little change in the volume of freight handled by Canadian raiulways in September, according to Statistics Canada.

Total freight reached 29.4 million metric tons (MT) in September, virtually unchanged from the same month last year.

Domestic rail freight originating in Canada and destined within Canada and other parts of the world rose 1.2% to 26.0 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 0.1% to 284,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars totalled 23.3 million MT, up 0.4%. The increase was attributable to gains in several commodity groupings, particularly other chemical products and preparations (up 279 000 MT); fresh, chilled or dried vegetables (up 256 000 MT); fuel oils and crude petroleum (up 248 000 MT), and other cereal grains (up 237 000 MT).

Intermodal freight loadings rose 7.9% to 183,000 units in September. From a tonnage perspective, traffic grew 8.6% to 2.7 million MT. The gain stemmed from both increased containerized cargo shipments and trailers loaded on flat cars.

Traffic received from the United States fell 7.9% to 3.4 million MT. The drop was attributable to decreased non-intermodal and intermodal shipments.