CN Rail says that western Canadian farmers moved a record 21.8 million metric tonnes of grain during the 2016/17 crop year.

This exceeded the previous record set in 2014/15 by two per cent.

"Through innovation, collaboration and improved communication with our supply chain partners, CN moved more grain in a single crop year than ever before," said Doug MacDonald, CN vice president of bulk. "We did this by further developing our supply chain ingenuity with our partners to meet demand, resulting in improvements in the use of equipment and better than ever efficiencies in size of trains."

One of the key factors that contributed to the large amount of grain being moved was the introduction of 200-car grain trains to improve efficiency.

CN said more rail capacity is needed in Vancouver to meet forecasted demand driven by new and ongoing investment in export grain terminals.