According to Statistics Canada, Canadian railways transported 32.4 million tons of freight in October, down 1.2 percent from October 2020 and following a similar year-over-year decline in September.
Despite this small decrease, total freight carried was just under the five-year average of 33.0 million tons for October, as increases in energy and steel product shipments helped to offset a large decline in grain shipments.
In the 10-month period from January to October 2021, the total cargo volume moved by rail amounted to 306.8 million tons. While this cumulative total was up 2.0 percent from the same period in 2020, it was still 5.2 percent below the level observed for January to October 2019, before the pandemic.
October's decline in total freight carried reflected a lower volume of domestic loadings, both non-intermodal and intermodal (containers). Domestic non-intermodal freight traffic was down 2.1 percent year over year to 25.6 million tons in October, mainly as a result of ongoing declines in some agricultural and food products—notably grains.
Loadings of primary or semi-finished iron and steel, which have risen year over year since February 2021, grew by 53.7 percent (+148,000 tons) in October. This followed substantial gains in September (+73.7 percent) and August (+111.3 percent), closely tracking year-over-year increases in primary metal manufacturing sales.
After posting year-over-year increases for 11 consecutive months, intermodal shipments originating from Canada—mainly containers—declined for the second month in a row, down 14.6 percent year over year in October. The 3.1 million tons loaded in October constitute the lowest traffic for this month in five years. Ongoing disruptions in global supply chains, including a shortage of containers and congestion at ports, continued to affect global shipping. Canada's imports of consumer goods edged down year over year for a fourth straight month in October, according to Canadian international trade data.
In October, freight traffic arriving from the United States remained well above the volume of previous years for the eighth consecutive month, up 23.2 percent to 3.7 million tons.