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Railway carloadings
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The Canadian railway industry loaded 18.7 million metric tonnes of cargo in July, down 18.6% from July 2008 and the lowest amount loaded for the month of July in 10 years.
Non-intermodal and intermodal loadings, which comprise the industry's core transportation systems, both saw declines in July.
Compared with July 2008, non-intermodal loadings fell 19.1% to 16.6 million metric tonnes in July. The drop was the result of decreased activity in the majority of the commodity groups carried by the railways. The largest decline in tonnage was observed in iron ores and concentrates (down 1.6 million metric tonnes). Large declines were also registered for potash, iron and steel (primary or semi-finished), sand, gravel and crushed stone and other non-metallic minerals.
Despite the overall drop in non-intermodal loadings, the industry saw significant gains in tonnage loadings of wheat, fresh, chilled or dried vegetables and colza seeds (canola).
Intermodal traffic fell 14.7% compared with July 2008 to 2.1 million metric tonnes. The drop was due to a decline in the amounts of both containers and trailers loaded onto flat cars.
Rail freight traffic coming from the United States fell to 2.2 million metric tonnes, down 22.2% from July 2008.
Available on CANSIM: table 404-0002.
Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 2732.
The July 2009 issue of Monthly Railway Carloadings, Vol. 86, no. 7 (52-001-X, free), is now available from the Publications module of our website.
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact the Dissemination Unit (toll-free 1-866-500-8400; fax: 613-951-0009; transportationstatistics@statcan.gc.ca), Transportation Division.
