According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 31.0 million tons in November, up 3.9 percent from the same month last year.
In November, freight originating in Canada increased 3.6 percent from the same month last year to 28.3 million tons. Non-intermodal freight increased 3.1 percent to 308,000 carloads in November. The amount of freight loaded into these cars totaled 25.4 million tons, up 3.1 percent from the same month last year.
Tonnages of iron ores and concentrates (-9.1 percent), wheat (-18.8 percent), fuel oils and crude petroleum (-7.4 percent), other chemical products and preparations (-27.6 percent), and sulfur (-10.8 percent) shipped by rail declined on a year-over-year basis in November.
Intermodal freight loadings increased 7.2 percent to 190,000 units from November 2015 to November 2016. The 7.4 percent increase in containers-on-flat-cars moderated the 2.0 percent decline in trailers-on-flat-cars. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic increased 8.7 percent to 2.9 million tons.