According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 30.5 million tons in April, down 2.6 percent from April 2017.
Freight originating in Canada decreased 4.3 percent from the same month last year to 27.1 million tons. Non-intermodal freight decreased by 0.8 percent to 301,000 carloads in April. The amount of freight loaded into these cars fell 4.8 percent from April 2017 to 24.1 million tons. This decrease was mainly due to a labor dispute at an iron ore mine that resulted in a 27.8 percent decline in shipments of iron ores and concentrates (-1 291 000 tons) compared with April 2017.
Intermodal freight loadings rose 1.1 percent year over year to 198,000 units in April. The gain stemmed from a 1.5 percent increase in containers-on-flat-cars. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic increased 0.5 percent to 3.0 million tons.
Freight traffic received from the United States rose 12.5 percent to 3.5 million tons as a result of increases in both non-intermodal (+12.0 percent) and intermodal (+20.0 percent) freight.