Delivering Canada’s Amazing Products to the World
Canada’s freight railways move more than 900,000 tonnes of goods every day, 365 days a year—delivering essential products to customers across Canada and around the globe. Transporting everything from the cars we drive, to the food we eat and the fuel we use to heat our homes, Canada’s freight rail system is crucial to our lives and our economy.
Whether our railways are moving bulk, industrial or consumer goods, they are committed to transporting products efficiently, safely, cost-effectively and sustainably. In fact, a locomotive can pull one tonne of freight more than 220 kilometres on a single litre of fuel. Now that’s hard to beat.
The Goods We Move
With more than 1,800 locomotives pulling nearly five million carloads, Canada’s railways transport more than 358 million tonnes of goods a year. In 2016, our railways moved close to 937,000 carloads of minerals, more than 616,000 carloads of fuels and chemicals, close to 527,000 carloads of agricultural products and some 326,000 carloads of forest products.
Intermodal traffic—the transportation of shipping containers and truck trailers by rail— continues to increase as businesses look to railways to move a variety of goods that Canadians rely on every day, such as grain, auto parts, frozen foods, electronics, and much more.
Connecting Canada to a World of Possibilities
Canadian railways operate more than 42,000 kilometres of track across our country. These rail lines connect Canada’s industrial, consumer and resource sectors to ports on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and open up a world of possibilities.
Through a network of strategically located intermodal terminals (rail, ship and truck) in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax and Chicago, more than $175 billion worth of Canadian exports are able to reach world markets each year. Railways are the backbone of our country’s integrated supply chain, and help to ensure that Canada stays competitive in today’s global economy.