CN Rail will be spending $445 million this year on expanding and upgrading its network across British Columbia, the company said Monday.
The work will include adding track in yards to handle growing traffic, building new sidings between Prince Rupert and Edmonton, as well as continuing ongoing efforts to increase capacity at the Port of Vancouver and at the Port of Prince Rupert.
The maintenance program calls for replacing more than 160 kilometres of rail, installing over 209,000 new railroad ties and 46,000 concrete ties, rebuilding 22 road crossing surfaces and maintenance work on bridges, culverts, signal systems, and other track infrastructure.
"We take our essential role in the North American economy seriously and these investments in British Columbia are a key part of our strategy to support growth," said CN western region vice president James Thompson in a statement.
At the Port of Vancouver, CN has coal, grain and intermodal terminals. In the Vancouver area, CN has two distribution centres for forest products, two for metals, three for automotive products, and a CN CargoFlo bulk handling centre.
In Prince George, CN has an intermodal terminal and another CargoFlo bulk handling facility in Ashcroft. Vancouver is home to a major rail classification yard.
