CN Rail

MONTREAL, March 3, 2020 (Press Release) -CN announced today that, in the absence of significant illegal blockades on its network over the last four days, it has started calling back most of the temporarily laid off employees based in Eastern Canada.  

Over 1,400 trains, including passenger trains, were delayed or cancelled because of the blockades, causing shutdowns of parts of CN’s network as freight is parked across the network, ready to be moved.

“As the situation is stabilizing, we have started calling back most of the temporarily laid off employees based in Eastern Canada to move our customers’ goods as we continue to focus on a safe and progressive recovery,” said JJ Ruest, president and chief executive officer at CN. “While we are keeping a close watch on our network for any further disruptions, we are mobilizing our employees to be ready to implement a focused and methodical recovery plan for our Eastern network. The complete network recovery process will take several weeks. I wholeheartedly thank our customers, partners, stakeholders as well as all the various law enforcement agencies involved including CN Police Services for their patience, support, and understanding during this unprecedented ordeal. I also wish to recognize the very helpful support of the provincial Premiers and their respective governments and the involvement of the Federal Government.”

“In Western Canada, for the last two weeks, we have been well on our way to recovering. While we are aware that there is still work ahead of us, export grain, imported containerized goods, coal, potash, energy products, and other commodities are moving to markets. We are rebalancing our assets to service customer sites for loading,” explained Ruest.

CN is a true backbone of the economy transporting more than C$250 billion worth of goods annually for a wide range of business sectors, ranging from resource products to manufactured products to consumer goods, across a rail network of approximately 20,000 route-miles spanning Canada and mid-America. CN – Canadian National Railway Company, along with its operating railway subsidiaries – serves the cities and ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile, Ala., and the metropolitan areas of Toronto, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, Duluth, Minn./Superior, Wis., and Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America. For more information about CN, visit the company’s website atwww.cn.ca.

MONTREAL, Feb. 11, 2020 (Globe Newswire) -CN announced that it will be forced to shut down significant parts of its Canadian network imminently unless the blockades on its rail lines are removed.

A public statement from the individuals blocking the lines explained that their actions are in solidarity with the pipeline opposition movement and are unrelated to CN's activities.

The blockades near Belleville, ON, on CN’s only eastern link between Western Canada and Eastern Canada and between Eastern Canada and the US Mid-West and on CN’s northern mainline in B.C. between Prince George and Prince Rupert, are impacting all Canadians’ ability to move goods and enable trade. There are currently no movements of any trains, freight or passenger, at both those locations. Hundreds of trains have been canceled since the blockades began five days ago. The impact is also being felt beyond Canada’s borders and is harming the country’s reputation as a stable and viable supply chain partner.  

“It’s not just passenger trains that are impacted by these blockades, it’s all Canadian supply-chains” said JJ Ruest, president and chief executive officer at CN. “We are currently parking trains across our network, but due to limited available space for such, CN will have no choice but to temporarily discontinue service in key corridors unless the blockades come to an end.

“Intermodal containers carrying perishable goods including food and consumer items, Canadian grain, deicing fluid at airports, construction materials, propane to Quebec and Atlantic Canada, natural resources creating rural jobs across Canada such as lumber, aluminum, coal and propane; all of these commodities are already impacted and will see their movements even more diminished. Factories and mines will be soon faced with very difficult decisions. The Port of Prince Rupert is effectively already shutdown. The Ports of Montreal and Halifax are also already feeling the impact of these blockades which will have a trickledown effect on consumer goods in the next few weeks,” added Ruest.  

“We have obtained court injunctions for both locations and we are working with local enforcement agencies to enforce the orders. We have also engaged with customers, industry associations as well as officials in Ottawa and across Canada to explain to them the consequences and material impact that shutting down the railroad will have on their constituents,” concluded Ruest.

CN is a true backbone of the economy transporting more than C$250 billion worth of goods annually for a wide range of business sectors, ranging from resource products to manufactured products to consumer goods, across a rail network of approximately 20,000 route-miles spanning Canada and mid-America. CN – Canadian National Railway Company, along with its operating railway subsidiaries – serves the cities and ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile, Ala., and the metropolitan areas of Toronto, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, Duluth, Minn./Superior, Wis., and Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America. For more information about CN, visit the company’s website atwww.cn.ca.

MONTREAL, Dec. 3, 2019 (Globe Newswire) -CN today announced that its recovery plan is on track and that it is revising its guidance following the impact of the 8-day strike.

“Our discipline on our recovery plan is delivering results,” said JJ Ruest, president and chief executive officer of CN. “While we expect to take some time and we remain dependent on favourable weather, we are pleased by how things are progressing. Safety is at the heart of everything we are doing as we bring our Canadian Operations back online and we have not experienced any significant setbacks at this point.”

CN would like to thank its customers for the collaboration they have provided during the recovery process and will continue to work closely with them.

Due to the impact of the strike, estimated at around $0.15 of EPS, CN is revising its 2019 full year financial outlook, and remains focused on continuing to realign its resources in light of the weaker demand, including its workforce, to address cost takeout efforts that started prior to the strike.

Revised 2019 financial outlook
CN is now targeting to deliver 2019 adjusted diluted EPS growth in the low to mid single-digit range versus last year's adjusted diluted EPS of C$5.50⁽¹⁾, compared with its October 22, 2019 financial outlook which called for adjusted diluted EPS growth in the high single-digit range.

(1) Non-GAAP Measures
CN reports its financial results in accordance with United States generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). CN also uses non-GAAP measures in this news release that do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP, such as adjusted performance measures. These non-GAAP measures may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. For further details of these non-GAAP measures, including a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, refer to the attached supplementary schedule, Non-GAAP Measures.

CN's full-year adjusted diluted EPS outlook⁽²⁾excludes the expected impact of certain income and expense items, as well as those items noted in the reconciliation tables provided in the attached supplementary schedule, Non-GAAP Measures. However, management cannot individually quantify on a forward-looking basis the impact of these items on its EPS because these items, which could be significant, are difficult to predict and may be highly variable. As a result, CN does not provide a corresponding GAAP measure for, or reconciliation to, its adjusted diluted EPS outlook.

(2) Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements included in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and under Canadian securities laws. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The Company cautions that its assumptions may not materialize and that current economic conditions render such assumptions, although reasonable at the time they were made, subject to greater uncertainty. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of terminology such as "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "assumes," "outlook," "plans," "targets," or other similar words.

2019 key assumptions
CN has made a number of economic and market assumptions in preparing its 2019 outlook. The Company assumes that North American industrial production for the year will increase in the range of 0.5 to one per cent, and assumes U.S. housing starts of approximately 1.25 million units and U.S. motor vehicle sales of approximately 17 million units. For the 2018/2019 crop year, the grain crops in both Canada and the United States were in line with their respective three-year averages. The Company assumes that the 2019/2020 grain crop in Canada will be in line with the three-year average and that the 2019/2020 grain crop in the United States will be below the three-year average. CN now assumes RTMs in 2019 will be negative compared to 2018 (compared to its October 22, 2019 assumption that total RTMs would be slightly negative). CN assumes continued pricing above rail inflation. CN assumes that in 2019, the value of the Canadian dollar in U.S. currency will be approximately $0.75, and assumes that in 2019 the average price of crude oil (West Texas Intermediate) will be in the range of US$55 to US$60 per barrel. In 2019, CN plans to invest approximately C$3.9 billion in its capital program, of which C$1.6 billion is targeted toward track and railway infrastructure maintenance.