Following a less-than-stellar service record during the winter of 2017-18, Canada’s largest railway is boosting capital investment with an eye to expanding network capacity in Western Canada.
Canadian National Railway announced last week that it will increase its 2018 capital spending to $3.4 billion, up from $3.2 billion previously.
J.J. Ruest, the company’s interim president and chief executive officer, said the additional investment will allow CN to spend $400 million on network expansion and infrastructure improvements in Western Canada, up from the $250 million previously budgeted.
CN officials said in an email that 29 major infrastructure projects will be undertaken this year, including new sections of double track across the Canadian Prairies and yard expansions at various western Canadian locations including Edmonton, Winnipeg and Melville, Sask.
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CN officials said the company has experienced “upwards of 10 plus percent volume growth versus 2014 in the pinch points of the western corridor.”
“We did not really spend, after 2015, a lot of capital in that corridor,” said CN’s chief operating officer, Mike Cory. “(So) we don’t have the resiliency, when things do fail out there, to catch up as fast as we want.”
