According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 31.8 million tons in March, up 8.8 percent from the same month last year.
In March, freight originating in Canada increased 7.6 percent from the same month last year to 28.8 million tons. Non-intermodal freight increased 5.5 percent to 312,000 carloads in March. The amount of freight loaded into these cars totaled 25.7 million tons, up 7.0 percent from the same month last year.
Tonnages of iron ores and concentrates (+16.5 percent), fuel oils and crude petroleum (+40.0 percent), fresh, chilled or dried vegetables (+140.6 percent) and coal (+6.7 percent) were up in March compared with the same month last year.
Intermodal freight loadings rose 12.2 percent from March 2016 to 197,000 units in March. The increase stemmed from a 12.2 percent gain in containers-on-flat-cars and a 16.2 percent increase in trailers-on-flat-cars. In terms of weight, intermodal traffic rose 13.4 percent to 3.0 million tons.
Freight traffic received from the United States rose 21.4 percent to 3.1 million tons as a result of a 24.3 percent increase in non-intermodal freight and a 6.9 percent decline in intermodal freight from the United States.