Canada Rail Volume Report: Crossborder September 2023

RailState, the rail industry’s only provider of real-time rail network visibility, independently tracks all freight rail movements across Canada in real-time. 

This report covers carload movements across the border into the United States.  

Southbound

Southbound rail volume into the United States remained largely unchanged from August. Total carload volume fell 0.7% in September. CN’s southbound volume dropped 1.8% while CPKC had a moderate increase of 1.1%. 

The market share split between the two railroads also remained mostly unchanged with CN moving 61% of carloads across the border into the United States.

Northbound

Volume into showed bigger differences between the railroads but overall volume increased a mere 0.2%. CN had a moderate drop of 3.3% in September and CPKC increased carload volumes by 6.4%. 

September was the sixth consecutive month of northbound volumes outpacing southbound volumes. There was a net difference of 9096 more carloads moving northbound into Canada in September.