According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 31.8 million tons in March, up 0.1 percent from March 2017.
Freight originating in Canada decreased 0.9 percent from the same month last year to 28.5 million tons in March. Non-intermodal freight increased by 1.0 percent to 314,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars fell 1.6 percent from March 2017 to 25.3 million tons.
In March, the commodities with the largest increase in tonnage were wheat (+246,000 tons or +13.8 percent), other cereal grains (+215,000 tons or +46.6 percent), potash (+177,000 tons or +10.3 percent), gaseous hydrocarbons, including LPGs (+83,000 tons or +16.0 percent) and other metallic ores and concentrates (+63,000 tons or +20.4 percent) compared with March 2017.
Conversely, tonnages declined for fresh, chilled or dried vegetables (-385,000 tons or -63.2 percent), iron ores and concentrates (-282,000 tons or -5.8 percent) and colza seeds (canola) (-210,000 tons or -18.9 percent) over the same period.
Intermodal freight loadings rose 10.0 percent from March 2017 to 217,000 units. The gain stemmed from a 10.3 percent increase in containers-on-flat-cars. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic rose 5.0 percent to 3.2 million tons.
Freight traffic received from the United States rose 9.0 percent to 3.3 million tons, as a result of increases in both non-intermodal (+8.7 percent) and intermodal (+12.5 percent) freight.