According to Statistics Canada, the volume of rail freight carried in Canada totaled 31.6 million tons in November, up 1.9 percent from November 2016.
Freight originating in Canada was virtually unchanged from the same month in 2016 at 28.3 million tons. Non-intermodal freight fell by 0.1 percent to 308,000 carloads in November. The amount of freight loaded into these cars totaled 25.1 million tons, down 1.2 percent from November 2016.
Year over year, the commodities with the largest increase in tonnage in November were iron ores and concentrates (+762 000 tons or +17.4 percent); fuel oils and crude petroleum (+124 000 tons or +12.4 percent); wheat (+81 000 tons or +4.8 percent); gaseous hydrocarbons, including liquefied petroleum gas (+76 000 tons or +11.8 percent); and animal feed and products (+67 000 tons or +17.9 percent).
Conversely, tonnages declined for fresh, chilled or dried vegetables (-384 000 tons or -74.2 percent), coal (-317 000 tons or -11.4 percent), and colza seeds (canola) (-176 000 tons or -15.4 percent).
Intermodal freight loadings rose 11.1 percent to 211,000 units from November 2016 to November 2017. The gain was attributable to increases in both containers-on-flat-cars (+11.1 percent) and trailers-on-flat-cars (+8.3 percent). In terms of weight, intermodal traffic increased 10.2 percent to 3.2 million tons.
Freight traffic received from the United States rose 22.7 percent to 3.2 million tons, as a result of increases in both non-intermodal (+23.8 percent) and intermodal (+8.7 percent) freight from the United States.