Canadian Rail Freight Volume Rises 2.6% Year-Over-Year in July

On Monday, Statistics Canada (StatCan) reported that Canadian railways transported 31.7 million tons of freight in July, up 2.6% from a year earlier and marking the fourth consecutive month of annual increases.

Overall traffic reached the third-highest level on record for July and exceeded the five-year average of 30.1 million tons. Strong growth in grain carloadings more than offset large declines in coal and potash.

Domestic intermodal shipments—mainly containers—totaled 3.2 million tons in July, little changed from a year earlier. StatCan noted that container volumes remained strong despite wildfire-related disruptions that delayed intermodal freight moving between eastern and western Canada.

Freight loadings from connections with US railways rose 11.1% year-over-year to 3.8 million tons in July, marking the fifth consecutive month of annual growth. StatCan said the increase may partly reflect the rerouting of some rail traffic through US connections amid wildfires in Northern Ontario and British Columbia.