Delivering Canada’s Amazing Products to the World

Canada’s freight railways move over 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 210 kilometres on a single litre of fuel. Now that’s hard to beat.

Railways connect Canada’s industrial, consumer and resource sectors to ports on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, helping more than $205 billion worth of Canadian exports to reach world markets each year.

The Goods We Move

With more than 3,800 locomotives pulling nearly five million carloads, Canada’s railways transport over 332 million tonnes of goods a year. In 2019, our railways moved more than 1,000,000 carloads of minerals, more than 645,000 carloads of fuels and chemicals, more than 538,000 carloads of agricultural products, and some 361,000 carloads of coal.

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 nearly 43,000 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 $205 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.