Total average daily volume headed eastbound from the Western Canada ports grew 18.1% in October compared to September, and CPKC continued to increase its market share of international intermodal volume.
Over the past ten days, 65,666 containers moved east on these two routes through the southwest United States. BNSF moved 58.5% of the total container volume and 61% of the domestic container volume.
Southbound rail volume into the USs remained largely unchanged from August, dropping just 0.7% in September. CN’s southbound volume dropped 1.8% while CPKC had a moderate increase of 1.1%.
Grain export carloads saw the biggest increase in September, as was expected with the start of the grain harvest season. Total grain carloads rose 75% from August.
Total train volume westbound to the Port of Vancouver increased 14.1% in September compared to August. The biggest gain came from Grain trains, which jumped 65.2% from 46 trains in August to 76 trains in September.
The total average daily volume headed eastbound from the Western Canada ports was down 15.6% in September compared to August. Compared to earlier in the year when CPKC moved about one third of international intermodal containers from the western ports, CPKC moved 42% in September.
Total southbound traffic from Canada in August was 130,216 carloads. This is a 7.1% increase over July.
Overall traffic moving into the western ports region increased in August, going from 118,477 carloads moving to the ports in July to 131,338 carloads, an increase of 10.9%. Daily average volume in August was 4,378 carloads per day.
August saw 67,233 containers enter through the Port of Vancouver. This is a 55.0% increase over July, which had much lower volumes stemming from the work shutdown at the western Canada ports. Average daily volume was 2,201 containers per day, which is the highest daily volume since last September.
RailState has looked in more detail at how CN and CPKC handled the August 18 traffic interruption in the Fraser River Canyon Directional Running Zone caused by the Kookipi Creek Fire.
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