According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 32.9 million tons in September, up 3.1 percent from the same month a year earlier.
Freight originating in Canada rose 4.8 percent year over year to 29.9 million tons in September. Non-intermodal freight increased by 7.0 percent to 325,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars rose 5.8 percent from September 2017 to 26.9 million tons.
In September, the commodity with the largest year-over-year increase in tonnage was fuel oils and crude petroleum, up 696 000 tons or 66.2 percent. From May to September, tonnages carried increased by 133.3 percent compared with the same period in 2016 and was 52.6 percent higher compared with the same period in 2017. The gap between oil prices on the world market and the Canadian market has widened compared with last year.
Intermodal freight loadings fell 1.3 percent from September 2017 to 205,000 units. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic declined 4.0 percent to 3.0 million tons.
Freight traffic received from the United States declined 10.7 percent to 3.0 million tons as a result of a 12.1 percent decrease in non-intermodal freight.