Railway carloadings, October 2013
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Released: 2013-12-18
The Canadian railway industry carried 31.2 million tonnes of freight in October, up 9.0% from the same month last year. The increase was attributable to loadings of several commodities, particularly coal, and non-intermodal shipments from the United States.
Rail freight originating in Canada and destined within Canada and other parts of the world rose 8.0% to 27.5 million tonnes. These shipments are composed of non-intermodal freight (that is, cargo moved via box cars or loaded in bulk) and intermodal freight (that is, cargo moved via containers and trailers on flat cars).
Canadian railways carried 304,000 carloads of non-intermodal freight traffic in October, an increase of 6.8%. On a volume basis, these shipments totalled 24.8 million tonnes, itself an 8.1% rise. Commodities with the strongest traffic, from a tonnage perspective, were coal (up 469 000 tonnes), iron ores and concentrates (up 329 000 tonnes), fuel oils and crude petroleum (up 318 000 tonnes), and wheat (up 314 000 tonnes).
Intermodal traffic reached 181,000 containers and trailers in October, a combined increase of 6.3%. The tonnage of these units totalled 2.7 million tonnes, a gain of 6.6%. Containerized cargo shipments represented the vast majority of the tonnage growth for the month.
Rail traffic coming from the United States rose 16.8% in October to 3.7 million tonnes. The robust growth stemmed primarily from non-intermodal shipments, which increased 16.5% to 3.4 million tonnes.
Note to readers
All the data in this release are not seasonally adjusted.
For non-intermodal traffic, rail carriers report the number of cars and tonnes by commodity of revenue-generating freight that they have loaded in Canada.
For intermodal freight, the carriers report the number of units and tonnes for containers-on-flat-cars and trailers-on-flat-cars, with no commodity data.
The October 2013 issue of Monthly Railway Carloadings, Vol. 90, no. 10 (Catalogue number52-001-X), is now available from the Browse by key resource module of our website under Publications.
Contact information
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