According to Statistics Canada, Canadian railways transported 30.7 million tons of freight in May, down 5.0 percent compared with May 2022, and the first such decline in 12 months. Strong growth in carloadings of grain tempered the overall decrease.
Despite this decline, freight traffic volume was just below the five-year average of 31.6 million tons for May.
The rail traffic decline in May was the result of lower volumes across all types of rail operations: non-intermodal, intermodal and traffic from US connections.
After 12 consecutive months of year-over-over increases, domestic non-intermodal freight loadings (mainly commodities) edged down by 2.0 percent to 24.1 million tons in May compared with the same month in 2022, led by a sharp decline in carloadings of iron ores.
With global steel production weakening in May, loadings of iron ores and concentrates declined 11.0 percent year over year (-585,000 tons) in May, while loadings of iron and steel-primary or semi-finished were down 23.3 percent (-108,000 tons). Indeed, Statistics Canada's Monthly Survey of Manufacturing reported a year-over-year decrease of 16.4 percent for primary metal manufacturing sales in May.
Domestic rail intermodal shipments—mainly containers—originating in Canada declined for the sixth straight month, falling by 8.2 percent year over year in May to 3.1 million tons.
Intermodal rail volume was the second lowest in seven years for the month of May, reflecting Canada's lower imports and exports of consumer goods as reported in May's Canadian international merchandise trade.
Loadings from connections with American railways declined for the ninth consecutive month in May, down 19.0 percent year over year to 3.5 million tons.