Traffic Report: Intermodal, June 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. 

June saw 63,523 containers enter through the western Canada ports. This is a drop of 5.27% of total container volume from May and 12.6% lower volume than June 2022. Average daily volume was 2,117 containers per day. While June volume was lower than volume in May, it remained above container volume seen in October 2022 through April 2023. 

This June drop in volume was not felt equally by the two main carriers. Volume on CPKC increased in May and that trend continued into June. Average daily volume on CPKC was up 4.16% in June to 1,102 containers per day. This is the highest volume on CPKC since August 2022. 

Intermodal traffic on CN showed a different story in June. Total volume was down 11.1% from May and average daily volume is 1,016 containers per day, a drop of 8.10% from last month. 

This is the first month since July 2022 that CPKC carried more intermodal traffic than CN. 

Differences Between Railways

CPKC

CPKC is running a consistent number of trains in June as it did in May, at a pace of just under 4 trains per day. These trains are carrying more in June, however. CPKC trains are carrying an average of 298 containers per train in June. In May, these trains averaged 20 fewer containers per train.