Ottawa Ontario - According to Statistics Canada, the volume of freight carried by Canadian railways reached 33.1 million tons in March, up 1.2 percent from March 2020.
 
This marked the fifth consecutive month of year-over-year growth.
 
The overall tonnage was well above the five-year average for March, breaking the record of 32.7 million tons established in the same month in 2020.
 
Domestic intermodal shipments, mainly containers, drove the overall increase in freight transported by rail in March, rising by 37.4 percent year-over-year to reach 3.4 million tons.
 
This was the highest volume recorded for March in 20 years, and came on the heels of strong increases posted in February (+42.4 percent) and January (+20.2 percent).
 
In March, freight traffic arriving from the United States remained well below the volume of the previous year for the 12th consecutive month, down 6.5 percent to 3.4 million tons.
 
Author unknown.