A consultant’s report requested by the Railway Association of Canada (RAC) shows that Canada’s freight-rail rates are the lowest of major market-based economies the firm surveyed, including in the United States. The report by CPCS concluded that Canada’s average freight-rail rate is 11% lower than that of the United States, according to a press release from RAC. In 2021, shippers paid 4.16 U.S. cents per revenue ton-mile on railways in Canada. Western grain shippers paid nearly 30% less than the average rate at just 2.97 cents per revenue ton mile; and Canadian freight-rail rates have grown more slowly than U.S. rates — 43% vs. 72% — over the past 33 years and at less than half the rate of commodity and general prices over that same period.
