By Robb M. Stewart

Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. moved 2.29 million metric tons of Canadian grain and grain products in January, a new record for the month.

On grain shipments:

The rail operator said the volume of grain and grain-products shipments nearly doubled compared with January 2022, despite slowed grain-vessel loading because of rain in Vancouver, British Columbia; holiday closures; and periods of extreme winter operating conditions.

CP said it has moved more than 15 million tons of Canadian grain and grain products so far in the 2022-2023 crop year, exceeding the amount shipped by this time in the previous crop year by more than 45%.

On Tuesday, CP reported moving 713,700 carloads of goods across its operations in the final quarter of last year, up from 655,600 in the same period of 2021. That included a 24% increase in carloads of grain for the three-month period.

On West Coast grain loading:

CP said it has called on government and industry to improve the ability to load grain vessels in the rain at Canada's West Coast terminals.

"This problem in Vancouver is causing significant capacity constraints for Canada's export of grain and agricultural products. Persistent rain delays in Vancouver disrupt the efficient, balanced cycling of rail cars from the Port of Vancouver back to the in-country grain elevators on the Prairies, where they are re-loaded with grain and transported back to the West Coast. These delays unavoidably reduce the grain supply chain's velocity and export capacity," it said.

Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-02-23 1031ET