November 30, 2023
Statistics Canada reports that Canadian railways transported 30.7 million tonnes of freight in September, down slightly (-1.9%) from September 2022.
The Federal Agency notes that the overall freight volume remained just below the previous five-year average of 31.6 million tonnes for the month of September.
While shipments of iron ores and concentrates were down, carloadings of coal and certain non-metallic minerals registered strong gains.
In September 2023, intermodal shipments (mainly containers) originating from Canada led the overall decline in freight for the third month in a row, falling 10.2% year over year to 2.8 million tonnes. Container volumes have declined year over year for 10 straight months.
Loadings of non-intermodal freight (mainly commodities) in Canada were down 1.8% year over year to 24.3 million tonnes in September, led in part by a decrease in carloadings of iron ores and concentrates.
Loadings from connections with American railways posted a year-over-year increase, climbing 5.2% to 3.5 million tonnes in September. This was the second increase after 11 consecutive months of year-over-year declines.