Canadian trucking company Vitran Corp posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss, despite a 23 percent rise in revenue, hurt partly by weakness in its U.S. operations.

"Our U.S. LTL (less than truckload) operation had a significant challenge working out of the first-quarter weather issues that were compounded by the acquisition of Milan on Feb. 19," Chief Executive Rick Gaetz said in a statement.

Milan Express, a Tennessee-based less-than-truckload transportation service company, had about 2.5 days of freight backlogged by the time the acquisition was closed, Gaetz said.

For the second quarter, net loss from continuing operations was $2.3 million or 14 cents per share, compared with net earnings of $1.6 million, or 10 cents per share, a year ago.

Adjusted loss from continuing operations was 3 cents per share in the quarter.

Revenue rose 23.1 percent to $208.9 million.

Analysts on average were expecting the company to post a loss of 1 cent per share on revenue of $201.4 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. (Reuters)