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Last year, Canadian freight railroads carried 361.6 billion revenue ton-kilometers of cargo, setting a new record, according to the Railway Association of Canada’s (RAC) “2008 Railway Trends” publication.

The recently released report — an annual composite of financial and operating data for RAC’s 55 member railroads, including their performance over the past decade — also shows passenger railroads carried 67.9 million intercity riders and commuters in 2007.

In addition, the periodical shows intercity- and commuter-rail ridership increased 4.7 percent to 4.5 million and 4.6 percent to 63.4 million, respectively, year over year; freight railroads’ workload rose 1.6 percent; intermodal traffic soared 66.9 percent and minerals traffic jumped 27.6 percent during the past decade; freight train accidents in ’07 totaled 1,495, down 99 from the previous year; and railroads consumed 8.2 percent more fuel in ’07 than in ’98.

“The railways established new records for some key financial, workload and productivity indicators last year, but not as many as the banner year [in 2006],” said RAC President and Chief Executive Officer Cliff Mackay in a prepared statement.

The publication is available through RAC’s Web site at www.railcan.ca.