According to Statistics Canada, Canadian railways transported 32.4 million tons of freight in December, down slightly (-0.8 percent) from December 2018. This marked the fourth consecutive month of a year-over-year decline and the first decrease reported for the month of December in 10 years.
The non-intermodal operations accounted for all of the decline, decreasing 3.8 percent year over year to 26.1 million tons. Loadings of iron ores and concentrates (-14.6 percent or -751,000 tons) were down sharply, reflecting (among other factors) lingering production disruptions at a Quebec-Labrador mine from a temporary shutdown in mid-September.
Compared with December 2018, loadings of wheat (-14.0 percent or -319,000 tons) posted the second largest decline in tonnage. Loadings of potash (-15.6 percent or -313,000 tons) declined year over year for the sixth month in a row, still reflecting production cutbacks and a temporary shutdown of a number of mine sites due to weak global demand. Significant decreases were also reported in other chemical products and preparations (-45.2 percent or -135,000 tons).
Partly offsetting these declines were increases in loadings of coal (+12.0 percent or +347,000 tons), canola (+19.0 percent or +167,000 tons), other cereal grains (+27.1 percent or +130,000 tons), other oil seeds and nuts and other agricultural products (+57.9 percent or +117,000 tons) and fuel oil and crude petroleum (+4.5 percent or +97,000 tons). Indeed, the increase in December grain shipments may be an effort to clear a backlog following Canadian railway labor disruptions during November 2019.
Despite the overall decline in freight volume, intermodal traffic remained steady, rising 1.7 percent from the same period in 2018 to 2.9 million tons in December. Freight traffic coming from US rail connections rose significantly by 26.7 percent to 3.3 million tons.