February 22, 2024

Rail companies are doing very well through the end of 2023 even though the year itself was a disappointing year for total tonnage moved.

• December: 31.7 million tonnes of freight
• 11.2% increase from December 2022
• Second straight month of year-over-year growth
• Largest increase in tonnage since January 2023.

• 2023 tonnage was high because of massive grain harvest in 2022.

  • loadings of wheat up 1.2 million tonnes yoy each month from January to April of 2023.
• 2023 grain harvest is down

• Intermodal freight: increased 9.4% year over year to 2.8 million tonnes in December.
• First increase since November 2022, following 12 straight months of year-over-year decreases.

However, for all of 2023 intermodal freight traffic was down 7.6% to 34.0 million tonnes—the lowest annual level since 2020.

Non-intermodal rail traffic was up.

Total variance of traffic was down in 2023, so while the total traffic was disappointing, there was more steady flow of goods across rail lines since 2019.