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Canadian railways carried 29.7 million tonnes of freight in November, up 8.4% from the same month last year. Among the strongest factors contributing to this growth was increased demand for iron ores and concentrates.

Rail freight originating in Canada and destined within Canada and other parts of the world rose 9.1% to 26.4 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 carried by Canadian railways rose 7.9% to 293,000 carloads in November. The amount of freight loaded into these cars increased 9.7% to 23.8 million tonnes. Although iron ores and concentrates saw the largest gain in tonnage loadings (up 565 000 tonnes), several other commodities also saw strong growth during the month. These included coal (up 369 000 tonnes), fuel oils and crude petroleum (up 368 000 tonnes) and wheat (up 366 000 tonnes).

Intermodal traffic was up in November, as the combined number of units of containers and trailers shipped rose 4.6% to 171,000. The tonnage of these units increased 3.7% to 2.6 million tonnes.

Rail traffic coming from the United States rose 3.3% in November to 3.3 million tonnes. The increase in shipments was brought on by robust growth of intermodal containers, which rose 40.4% to 226 000 tonnes. The number of these containers also increased, with units up 23.9% to 14,000.

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 publication Monthly Railway Carloadings (Catalogue number 52-001-X), will be discontinued in February 2014. The last issue for this publication will focus on December 2013 rail traffic shipments.

Available in CANSIM: table CANSIM table 404-0002.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number survey number 2732.

The November 2013 issue of Monthly Railway Carloadings, Vol. 90, no. 11 (Catalogue number 52-001-X), is now available from the Browse by key resource module of our website under Publications.

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; mediahotline@statcan.gc.ca).

Date modified:2014-01-29
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