According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 29.3 million tons in October, down 6.1 percent from the same month last year.
Freight originating in Canada decreased 5.1 percent to 26.4 million tons. These shipments are composed of both non-intermodal and intermodal freight.
Non-intermodal freight decreased 6.0 percent to 288,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars declined 6.0 percent to 23.5 million tons. The drop reflects lower freight loadings of coal (down 0.5 million tons), wheat (down 0.3 million tons), other metallic ores and concentrates (down 0.2 million tons) and other chemical products and preparations (down 0.2 million tons).
Intermodal freight loadings rose by 4.8 percent to 194,000 units in October. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic grew 3.5 percent to 2.9 million tons as a result of an increase in containerized cargo shipments.