Railway carloadings, March 2015
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Released: 2015-05-27
The volume of rail freight carried in Canada totalled 30.9 million tonnes in March, up 5.6% from the same month last year.
Freight originating in Canada and destined within Canada and to other parts of the world rose 6.3% 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).
Non-intermodal freight rose 5.7% to 300,000 carloads. The amount of freight loaded into these cars totalled 24.6 million tonnes, up 6.0%. The gain was attributable to an increase in freight loadings in several commodity groupings, particularly iron ores and concentrates (up 495 000 tonnes), potash (up 356 000 tonnes) and lumber (up 217 000 tonnes).
Intermodal freight loadings rose 10.2% to 191,000 units in March. From a tonnage perspective, traffic increased 9.0% to 2.9 million tonnes, largely resulting from an increase in containerized cargo shipments.
Freight traffic received from the United States rose 0.5% to 3.4 million tonnes, reflecting increases in both non-intermodal and intermodal loadings.
Note to readers
The survey presents data essential to the timely analysis of the rail transportation industry and its contribution to the Canadian economy. Survey data cover carrier railways operating in Canada that provide for-hire freight service and their transportation of various railway carloading components, such as the number of rail cars, tonnage, units and 20-feet equivalent units.
Data aggregations are available for Canada, the Eastern Division and the Western Division.
The aggregations in this release are not seasonally adjusted.
Contact information
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