Container volume up 7% on Canadian railroads in January

Statistics Canada announced that Canadian railways carried 24.9 million tonnes of freight in January, up 7.3% from January 2011.

On the domestic front, non-intermodal and intermodal loadings saw their combined volume rise 5.2% to 21.9 million tonnes over the same 12-month period.

Non-intermodal cargo loadings, which are typically carried in bulk or loaded in box cars, advanced 4.9% to 19.6 million tonnes. The commodity groups with the largest increases in tonnage were coal, wheat and colza seeds.

Intermodal freight loadings of containers and trailers loaded onto flat cars also grew but the increase occurred solely on the strength of containerized cargo shipments as trailers loaded onto flat cars declined. Railways carried 264,872 TEUs in January this year, compared to 247,377 TEUs for the same month last year, an increase of 7%.

Internationally, total rail freight traffic received from the United States experienced a 25.4% gain to 3.0 million tonnes.