By CN, which is a for-profit Crown corporation, operates railways in Canada. It operates trains across the country from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The company has also been involved in numerous acquisitions, including the acquisition of Great Lakes Transportation in 2004, Wisconsin Central in 2001, and Illinois Central in 1999. This has enabled CN to link customers across the U.S. and Mexico.
The company is divided into three segments: Transcontinental services, Regional services, and Remote services. It operates the Toronto-Vancouver service and the http://www.canadarail.ca Montreal-Toronto service. It also operates services in eight contiguous provinces: Quebec-Windsor Corridor, Quebec-Windsor and Transcontinental, Ontario-Windsor, Manitoba-Windsor, Saskatchewan-Windsor, Quebec-Windsor and Ontario-Quebec. Its services include passenger trains, freight trains, regional services, tourist rail services, and shortline services.
CN has been rebranded as CN North America. The company’s name has been changed from “Canada Railway” to “CN North America” to reflect its new ownership and operations. It has operated under various different names since it was created in 1918, and it was owned and operated by the federal government until 2006. In 1993 and 1994, CN experimented with a rebranding. However, the company was not able to achieve the desired results. The company’s executives were also criticised for not providing adequate information to the public about safety conditions.
The company has been subject to multiple derailments. The most recent occurred in September 2007, when an Ultratrain train derailed in the south of Montreal. The derailment was the result of a collision with a freight train. After the accident, CN admitted that it had failed to provide adequate public safety information. This caused public outcry. In the aftermath, the company announced plans to increase passenger capacity on its Montreal-Toronto service. It also introduced the United Aircraft Turbo, a high-speed train equipped with gas turbines instead of diesel engines. It was not always reliable, and its engines were powered by UAC’s Canadian division.
Since the Second World War, the number of rail passenger services in Canada has declined. This has been attributed to the increase in air travel and the development of automobiles. As a result, many of the company’s branch lines became obsolete, and some were abandoned. Some of the abandoned railroad rights-of-way have been converted into recreational trails by local municipalities.
The company has received substantial subsidies from the federal government. In fact, it has received billions of dollars over the years. It has been a major beneficiary of the Canadian government’s social policy. It has also been a major recipient of the Government of Canada’s subsidies for infrastructure improvements. In 1992, CN received a $371 million cash dividend from the Government of Canada.
In the 1970s, the Canadian Government deregulated the railway industry, allowing it to operate freely. The government also introduced a fare structure known as “Red, White and Blue”. This allowed a steep discount on off-peak days, and it credited the system with a 600% increase in passenger numbers.
A new management team was appointed, including ex-federal government bureaucrats, to prepare CN for privatization. The management team’s focus was on increasing productivity. A series of large layoffs and aggressive cuts to the management structure were used to achieve this.
