RailState, the rail industry’s only provider of real-time rail network visibility, independently tracks all freight rail movements across Canada in real-time.
In May, more than 67,000 intermodal containers originated in Vancouver, resulting in a daily average volume of 2,163 containers per day. This represents a 18.4% increase in the daily average volume compared to April. Volume was higher in early May compared to the previous month and continued to increase throughout the month. Daily average volume was up on both railways, with CP showing larger growth of 23.3% and CN increasing volume by 14.0% over April.
Compared to a year earlier, overall container volume and average daily volume are still notably down. May 2022 saw total container volume of 81,800 for an average daily volume of 2,638. May 2023 volume is 18.0% lower than last year, volume on CP is down 12.4% and CN is down 22.8%.
Differences Between Railways
In May, CN ran approximately 4.5 more trains per week than in April. CP increased volume by nearly 6 trains per week.
Both railways are carrying similar ratios of the most common container type, 67% of both CP and CN traffic are 40-foot containers. CP carries more balanced ratios of 20-foot (16.4%) and 53-foot containers (16.1%), while CN skews more toward the smaller 20-foot containers (21%) than the 53-foot (12%).