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.
Flooding Halts Rail Traffic in Southern California, Wildfires Stop Trains in British Columbia
In the month since the end of the main strike period, the railroads are close to matching volumes seen before the strike. There has not been a significant, widespread increase in train volume aimed at clearing backlogs caused by the strike.
Glen Doiron joins RailState as Solutions Architect. Glen comes to RailState with a unique combination of shipper, class 1 railway, business analytics, and SaaS product experience.
The port terminals and railroads are moving quickly to resolve any backlogs as a result of the work stoppage.
RailState is closely monitoring the flows of rail traffic in the western ports region as a result of the ILWU strike.
Intermodal experienced the most immediate changes from the work stoppage, slowing to a halt soon after the start of the strike on July 1. Volume changes in other commodities, while not as immediate and stark as intermodal, are also showing a substantial impact from the strike.
RailState is closely monitoring the flows of rail traffic in the western ports region as a result of the ILWU strike.
The most dramatic change has been in intermodal. All non-domestic intermodal rail traffic into and out of the Ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert has stopped.
The dockworkers’ strike at the western ports began on July 1 and we have seen a fast and significant impact on freight rail volume out of the ports. Container volume out of the ports quickly dropped and there are now no 20 and 40 foot imported containers moving from port terminals.
Overall traffic moving into the western ports region declined in June, going from 137,550 carloads moving to the ports in May to 130,906 carloads in June, a decrease of 4.8%. Daily average volume in June was 4,364 carloads per day. CN experienced a significant drop of 7.9% in carload volume in June, and CPKC stayed mostly flat, decreasing only 0.65% from May.
Schedule your in-depth demo today to explore how Rail Network Intelligence can unlock insights for your rail supply chain.
Take the uncertainty out of rail with the only independent source of data on train volumes, commodity flows, corridor performance, system bottlenecks, train lengths, and more.
Copyright © 2026 RailState LLC and RailState Services LTD