According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 30.0 million tons in July, up 6.9 percent from the same month last year.
Freight originating in Canada increased 3.8 percent from the same month last year to 26.5 million tons. Non-intermodal freight increased 3.5 percent to 282,000 carloads in July. The amount of freight loaded into these cars totaled 23.5 million tons, up 3.3 percent from the same month last year.
Tonnages of fuel oils and crude petroleum (+40.5 percent), wheat (+10.0 percent), iron ores and concentrates (+3.1 percent), coal (+4.7 percent) and potash (+7.7 percent) were up in July compared with July 2016.
Intermodal freight loadings rose 8.2 percent to 206,000 units from July 2016 to July 2017. The gain stemmed from an 8.4 percent increase in containers-on-flat-cars and a 2.4 percent decline in trailers-on-flat-cars. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic increased 8.1 percent to 3.0 million tons.
Freight traffic received from the United States rose 39.1 percent to 3.4 million tons, as a result of a 45.0 percent increase in non-intermodal freight and a 16.2 percent decline in intermodal freight from the United States.