MONTREAL, QUÉBEC, CANADA — The Canadian National Railway (CN) has set a record by shipping over 31 million tonnes of Canadian grain and processed grain products via carload in the 2020-21 crop year.

This record exceeds the previous record for carload movement of 29.4 million tonnes set in the 2019–20 crop year. CN also moved more than 1.1 million tonnes of grain from Western Canada via containers, with grain volumes moved from Eastern Canada in addition to these levels.

“As an essential transportation service to the economy, to our customers, supply chain partners, and the communities we serve, we remain committed to making capacity-enhancing investments to our network and to upgrade our rolling stock,” said JJ Ruest, president and chief executive officer of CN. “These investments benefit our grain customers, as well as all those from the other sectors we serve. CN’s grain movement has been resilient during the pandemic, achieving 14 straight months of Canadian grain volume shipment records.

“We recognize that growing conditions across much of the Prairies have been very challenging as many producers face extremely hot and dry weather this year. Our dedicated team of railroaders will continue to work tirelessly with Canadian farmers, agri-organizations and grain customers to have the resources in place to move the upcoming harvest for the communities we proudly serve.”

In May 2021, CN announced plans to acquire 1,000 new-generation, high-capacity, grain hopper cars. It is part of a larger 3,500 hopper car fleet renewal program over the next three years. Building on CN’s on-going grain hopper car fleet renewal program that began in 2018, CN’s new generation fleet will grow to 6,000 hopper cars. During the last five years, CN has invested more than C$15 billion in capital equipment and infrastructure.