According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 32.7 million tons in December, up 6.5 percent from the same month a year earlier.
Freight originating in Canada rose 9.0 percent from the same month in 2017 to 30.0 million tons in December. Non-intermodal freight increased 9.8 percent to 327,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars rose 10.3 percent from December 2017 to 27.1 million tons.
In December, the commodities with the largest increase in tonnage compared with December 2017 were fuel oils and crude petroleum (+987,000 tons or +83.7 percent), wheat (+550,000 tons or +31.7 percent), iron ores and concentrates (+358,000 tons or +7.5 percent), potash (+313,000 tons or +18.5 percent) and fresh, chilled or dried vegetables (+273,000 tons or +155.3 percent).
Intermodal freight loadings rose 2.2 percent from December 2017 to 199,000 units. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic decreased 1.9 percent to 2.9 million tons.
Freight traffic received from the United States fell 14.9 percent to 2.6 million tons, as a result of a 16.4 percent decrease in non-intermodal freight.
The total volume of rail freight carried in Canada in 2018 reached 384.5 million tons in 2018, up 4.1 percent from the 369.2 million tons of rail freight carried in 2017. The top five commodities in 2018 were iron ores and concentrates (55,624,000 tons), coal (34,613,000 tons), wheat (23,199,000 tons), potash (22,533,000 tons) and fuel oils and crude petroleum (18,835,000 tons).