Highlights
- In August 2003, non-intermodal traffic totalled 235 thousand carloadings
and 18.6 million metric tonnes (mmt). This represents a 2.1% decrease
compared to August of last year and a 5.9% decrease from July.
- Reductions in loadings of iron ore and concentrates as well as coal
explain the drop in tonnage from July. These two commodities remain
however the top two, respectively accounting for 16% and 11% of the
total tonnage for August. Other commodities such as forest products
dropped 244,000 metric tonnes (mt) and potash was down by 159,000 mt.
Agricultural products such as other cereal grains and fresh chilled
or dried vegetable went up 180,000 mt an expected rise for the end of
the summer.
- The cumulative total for the first eight months of 2003 (excluding
intermodal loadings) reached 150.9 mmt compared to 159.9 mmt in 2002.
The top five commodity groupings, metric tonnes and rail cars
| Commodity Grouping |
Millions of tonnes |
|
Commodity Grouping |
Thousands of rail cars |
| |
|
|
|
|
| Iron ores and concentrates |
2.9 |
|
Iron ores and concentrates |
31 |
| Coal |
2.0 |
|
Coal |
20 |
| Wheat |
1.5 |
|
Wheat |
16 |
| Lumber |
1.0 |
|
Lumber |
13 |
| Potash |
0.9 |
|
Wood pulp |
11 |
These top five groups of commodities accounted for 44.4% of the August
tonnage and for 38.7% of the car loadings.
- Loadings for intermodal traffic, that is "containers-on-flat-cars"
(C.O.F.C.) and "trailers-on-flat-cars" (T.O.F.C.) totalled
2.1 mmt, about the same as August 2002. It did however show a decrease
of 4.9% from July 2003. January to August tonnage reached 17.3 mmt compared
to 16.2 mmt for the same period of 2002.
- Traffic received from the United States destined for Canada
or the U.S. reached 2.3 mmt, down 2.0% from July. From January to
August U.S. loadings reached 19.9 mmt compared to 17.4 mmt in 2002.
|
