Canadian National Railway Company - Introduction

Introduction

935 de La Gauchetière Street West
Montreal, Quebec H3B 2M9
Canada
Telephone: (514) 399-5430
Toll Free: (888) 888-5909
Fax: (204) 987-9310
Web site: http://www.cn.ca

Public Company
Incorporated: 1919 as Canadian National Railway Company Limited
Employees: 22,679
Sales: CAD 6.55 billion ($5.46 billion) (2004)
Stock Exchanges: Toronto New York
Ticker Symbols: CNR (Toronto); CNI (New York)
NAIC: 482111 Line-Haul Railroads; 482112 Short Line Railroads; 483113 Coastal and Great Lakes Freight Transportation; 488210 Support Activities for Rail Transportation; 488510 Freight Transportation Arrangement

One of the six major North American railways, known as Class 1 railways, Canadian National Railway Company (CN) operates the largest rail network in Canada and the only transcontinental network in North America. In Canada, the CN network encompasses 12,900 route miles in eight Canadian provinces, including the nation's five major ports—Vancouver and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, on the Pacific; the key Great Lakes port of Thunder Bay, Ontario; and Montreal and Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the Atlantic. The U.S. network comprises 6,400 route miles in 16 states, connecting the Canadian network to the U.S. Midwest (including Chicago) down to the Gulf of Mexico and the ports of Mobile, Alabama, and New Orleans. The company is also able to offer its customers access to Mexico and the U.S. Southwest through a marketing alliance with the Kansas City Southern Railway Company, with the two networks interconnecting in Jackson, Mississippi. The diversified freight transported over CN rails are well balanced among petroleum and chemicals, grain and fertilizers, coal, metals and minerals, forest products, automotive products, and intermodal services (the movement of trailers and containers on railroad freight cars). CN also holds interests in two overseas railways: 42.5 percent of English, Welsh & Scottish Railway Holdings Limited of Great Britain and 33 percent of Australian Transport Network Limited.

CN was formed in the post-World War I era through the integration and nationalization of two of the country's largest railroads, Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk. Although they were not the first railroads to come under government control, these two systems formed the basis of Canada's largest transportation conglomerate. After 78 years as a Crown corporation, CN was privatized through an initial public offering (IPO) on November 28, 1995. This was the largest privatization in Canadian history, raising CAD 2.26 billion for the government of Canada. Key post-privatization events included the 1999 acquisition of Illinois Central Corporation, the scuttling by regulators of a proposed merger with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation in 2000, and the acquisitions of Wisconsin Central Transportation Corporation (2001), the rail and marine holdings of Great Lakes Transportation LLC (2004), and BC Rail Ltd. (2004).