The owners of rail freight group Pacific National have written off $424 million on the company’s NSW coal haulage business and blamed lower container freight volumes, bad weather and smaller grain harvests for a wider annual net loss.

Pacific National is owned by a consortium of infrastructure funds and pension funds, including Global Infrastructure Partners and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which acquired the rail freight group after the former ASX-listed business Asciano was split up in 2016.