Canadian National Railway (CN) said it plans to invest approximately $345 million across British Columbia in 2019 to expand and strengthen the Company’s rail network throughout the province.
“Following a record capital program in 2018, CN has been able to take on more traffic from different commodity sectors based on contracts with our customers. This year, CN is planning to invest even more than last year to continue boosting capacity and network resiliency and to meet growing traffic on our corridors across B.C.,” said Doug Ryhorchuk, Vice-President of CN’s Western Region.
The B.C. investments are part of CN’s 2019 record $3.9-billion capital investment focused on enabling growth from all commodity segments, including consumer goods, grain, agricultural, forest, and energy products from all of our customers, safely and efficiently. Over two years, CN will have made a $7.4 billion capital investment.
“Our Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Community just completed an interim report on the trade corridor in Metro Vancouver and, given the growth in trade we expect through Canada’s new trade agreements, it will be vital that all component parts of our transport network make the strategic, coordinated investments needed to serve our customers at home and overseas. CN is a key part of our network, and their capital investments are valuable and timely,” said Ken Hardie, Member of Parliament for Fleetwood–Port Kells.
CN is currently deploying important safety enhancing technologies across its network, such as the Autonomous Track Inspection Program, Distributed Air Cars and Automated Inspection Portals. These innovations, combined with CN’s investments in locomotives, capacity, infrastructure, and train crews, will support the safe and efficient movement of our customers’ goods to their end markets.