Category: Lumber News

  • US Construction Input Costs, Construction Labour Shortage

    The prices of most building materials increased in April, according to the latest Producer Price Index release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the count of unfilled jobs in the US construction sector increased in March and approached the post-Great Recession high level. According to the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey and…

  • Canadian Railway Backlog Update

    Last week the Canadian forest products industry received very welcome news from one of the nation’s railroads which could only leave them overjoyed: CN Rail says it will purchase 350 riserless centrebeam lumber cars to meet growing demand for forest products despite lower segment revenues in the first quarter, according to Canadian Press. Rail Logistics…

  • The Value of Good Data

    A few weeks ago Madison’s noticed some dangerous and alarming mis-reporting on the part of the other two publications which track North American lumber and panel prices. Subscribers who follow Madison’s on Twitter https://twitter.com/LumberNews and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/madison’s-lumber-reporter/ will have seen the drama unfolding. We think the comparative North America softwood lumber prices trend graphs below…

  • Canada Railway Carloadings: February 2018

    The volume of rail freight carried in Canada totalled 27.2 million tonnes in February, down 0.2% from February 2017, according to the latest release from Statistics Canada April 25. Railway carloadings, total tonnage shipped Freight originating in Canada decreased 1.8% from the same month last year to 24.2 million tonnes. Non-intermodal freight fell by 2.1% to 264,000 carloads in February. The amount of freight loaded…

  • CN Rail to Purchase 350 Lumber Cars to Meet Growing Demand of Canada’s Forest Industry

    This morning the Canadian forest products industry received news from one of the nation’s railroads which could only leave them overjoyed: CN Rail says it will purchase 350 riserless centrebeam lumber cars to meet growing demand for forest products despite lower segment revenues in the first quarter, according to Canadian Press late Wednesday. The new…