According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 27.4 million tons in December, down 5.4 percent from the same month in 2014.
Freight originating in Canada declined 2.7 percent to 25.0 million tons, with shipments composed of both non-intermodal and intermodal freight.
Non-intermodal freight fell 2.2 percent to 276,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars totaled 22.5 million tons, down 2.5 percent. The decline reflected a decrease in freight loadings of iron ores and concentrates (down 0.3 million tons), coal (down 0.3 million tons), potash (down 0.2 million tons) and fuel oils and crude petroleum (down 0.2 million tons).
Intermodal freight loadings fell 2.9 percent to 168,000 units in December. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic declined 4.4 percent to 2.5 million tons as a result of an increase in containerized cargo shipments.
Freight traffic received from the United States fell 26.6 percent to 2.4 million tons as a result of a decrease in both non-intermodal and intermodal shipments.