According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 31.5 million tons in March, down 1.5 percent from the same month a year earlier.
Freight originating in Canada rose 0.9 percent from the same month in 2018 to 28.7 million tons in March. Non-intermodal freight increased 0.1 percent to 314,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars rose 1.0 percent from March 2018 to 25.5 million tons.
The commodities with the largest increase in tonnage compared with March 2018 were iron ores and concentrates (+430,000 tons or +9.4 percent), gaseous hydrocarbons, including liquefied petroleum gas (+234,000 tons or +38.9 percent), fuel oils and crude petroleum (+118,000 tons or +9.5 percent) and coal (+111,000 tons or +3.7 percent).
Tonnages declined for other cereal grains (-221,000 tons or -33.3 percent), wheat (-174,000 tons or -8.6 percent), colza seeds (canola) (-123,000 tons or -13.7 percent) and other oil seeds and nuts and other agricultural products (-103,000 tons or -41.2 percent).
Intermodal freight loadings decreased 2.9 percent from March 2018 to 211,000 units. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic increased 0.6 percent to 3.2 million tons.
Freight traffic received from the United States declined 20.7 percent to 2.8 million tons as a result of a 21.9 percent decrease in non-intermodal freight.