CN, CP set new grain shipment records in Q3

(Source: Progressive Railroading: 10/05/2020)

CN and Canadian Pacific last week announced more records set for their grain shipments during 2020.

CN announced that it moved 7.76 million metric tons (MMT) of grain in third-quarter 2020 and that September marked the seventh consecutive month of record grain movements. In August, the Class I moved 2.43 MMT of Canadian grain compared with the previous record of 2.31 MMT set in 2018 and over 2.81 MMT in September compared with the previous September record of 2.6 MMT set in 2016.

That performance follows records set in March, April, May, June and July, CN officials said in a press release.

“Harvest conditions have been very good so far. Demand for Canadian grain is currently strong across global markets,” said Allen Foster, CN’s vice president of bulk. “CN will continue to enable our customers’ supply chains to get our natural resources to world markets.”

Meanwhile, CP achieved its best-ever third quarter for Canadian grain and grain products shipments, moving 7.72 MMT compared with 6.97 MMT in the previous third-quarter record set in 2014. CP also set a new September record, moving 2.8 MMT and beating the prior September 2017 record by more than 8.4 percent, CP officials said in a press release.

“The CP team showed itself ready for this fall’s harvest, supporting customers and their supply chains to get grain moving off the combine and to market,” said Joan Hardy, CP’s vice president of sales marketing grain and fertilizer. “Customers tell us the crop that continues to come off the fields is large, and CP is ready to keep it moving.”

CP’s new hopper cars continue to create additional capacity, company officials said. The average rail-car load of wheat for the 2019-2020 crop year was about 1.6 metric tons greater than during the 2017-2018 crop year, before CP began adding the new high-capacity hoppers to its fleet.