Canadian Rail Traffic Falls in August, Negatively Impacted by Work Stoppage

On Thursday, Statistics Canada (StatCan) reported that Canadian railways transported 27.8 million tons of freight in August. That is down 10.9% year-over-year and the lowest tonnage for the month in more than 10 years.

The declines in freight tonnage were led by fewer shipments of coal and potash as well as containers. The decline also coincided with a short but impactful work stoppage that affected Canada’s mainline rail carriers.

StatCan data shows that ahead of the stoppage, the carriers began a gradual shutdown to avoid stranding cargo and some American railways and a large marine container line began refusing shipments for Canada destined for rail. Although the work stoppage ended by August 24th, year-over-year volumes for the month were down across all types of rail operations: non-intermodal, intermodal, and traffic from the United States. The decline was felt across the country, with a 13.1% drop in eastern Canada compared with the same month a year earlier, while traffic in western Canada was down 9.5% over the same period.

In August, intermodal shipments—mainly containers—originating in Canada declined for the first time after six straight months of year-over-year increases. Tonnage was down 15.6% from August 2023 to reach 2.5 million, the lowest tonnage recorded for the month in over 10 years.

In August, freight traffic from the US declined for the first time after six consecutive months of year-over-year increases, down 18.5% year-over-year to 3.4 million tons—the lowest level for the month of August since 2020.