October 28, 2020
Statistics Canada reports that the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to dampen the volume of cargo carried by rail.
Canadian railways carried 29.0 million tonnes of freight in August, down 14.7% from August 2019. This was the fifth consecutive monthly decline and the biggest year-over-year drop since March.
The Federal Agency reports that the tonnage of non-intermodal freight (carloads) fell 14.1% to 23.0 million tonnes in August. While the drop reflects a widespread dip in many commodities, it was driven by considerable tonnage declines in hydrocarbons, which accounted for 72.7% of the total decrease in non-intermodal freight.
Intermodal freight loadings totalled just over 3.0 million tonnes in August, down 5.8% from August 2019. This year-over-year decline - the smallest since April - coincided with a 12.8% drop in Eastern Canada. It is difficult to tell whether the source of this decline was the almost two-week work stoppage at the Port of Montral, which has extensive connections to rail networks in Eastern Canada, or the economic conditions triggered by the pandemic.
Freight traffic from the United States fell 25.6% to 2.9 million tonnes in August.