Railway carloadings, December 2013
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Released: 2014-02-26
The Canadian railway industry carried 26.0 million tonnes of freight in December, an amount virtually unchanged from the same month last year. The industry benefited from strong growth in shipments received from the United States, which helped to offset a decline in domestic shipments.
Rail freight originating in Canada and destined within Canada and other parts of the world decreased 1.6% to 22.8 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).
Non-intermodal freight loadings fell 2.1% to 253,000 carloads in December. The amount of freight loaded into these cars declined 2.0% to 20.5 million tonnes. The tonnage decline in shipments was brought on by a drop in the majority of the 64 commodities loaded by Canadian railways.
Partially offsetting the decline, however, were gains in fuel oils and crude petroleum (up 324 000 tonnes); other chemical products and preparations (up 177 000 tonnes); and fresh, chilled or dried vegetables (up 138 000 tonnes).
Intermodal freight loadings rose 3.7% to 153,000 units in December. The gain was spurred by increased containerized cargo shipments and trailers loaded onto flat cars. From a tonnage perspective, intermodal traffic rose 2.9% to 2.3 million tonnes.
Rail freight traffic received from the United States rose 12.7% to a high of 3.2 million tonnes for the month of December. Both non-intermodal and intermodal shipments increased during the month.
Note to readers
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 publication Monthly Railway Carloadings (Catalogue number52-001-X) is now discontinued. The December 2013 issue is the last issue of this publication.
The December 2013 issue of Monthly Railway Carloadings, Vol. 90, no. 12 (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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