According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 27.2 million tons in February, down 0.2 percent from February 2017.
Freight originating in Canada decreased 1.8 percent from the same month last year to 24.2 million tons. Non-intermodal freight fell by 2.1 percent to 264,000 carloads in February. The amount of freight loaded into these cars fell 2.3 percent from February 2017 to 21.4 million tons.
In February, the commodities with the largest increase in tonnage compared with February 2017 were iron ores and concentrates (+522 000 tons or +12.9 percent), potash (+198 000 tons or +13.2 percent), gypsum (+88 000 tons or +215.7 percent), other metallic ores and concentrates (+84 000 tons or +35.1 percent) and alumina (+79 000 tons or +29.9 percent).
Conversely, tonnages declined over the same period for colza seeds (canola) (-289 000 tons or -33.3 percent), wheat (-260,000 tons or -17.6 percent) and fresh, chilled or dried vegetables (-170 000 tons or -42.7 percent).
Intermodal freight loadings rose 5.0 percent from February 2017 to 187,000 units in February 2018. The gain stemmed from a 5.0 percent increase in containers-on-flat-cars, and an 8.3 percent increase for trailers-on-flat-cars. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic increased 2.3 percent to 2.7 million tons.
Freight traffic received from the United States rose 14.3 percent to 3.0 million tons as a result of increases in both non-intermodal (+15.0 percent) and intermodal (+5.6 percent) freight.