A CN locomotive sits idle at the CN Stuart Yard west of the West Harbour GO station in Hamilton, Ont., Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter Power
MONTREAL — Canadian National Railway Co. rode a surge in grain and fuel shipments to higher profits amid Canada’s more “positive” investment milieu, its CEO says.
The country’s largest railway on Friday reported a six per cent year-over-year jump in third-quarter net income to $1.21 billion.
Revenues rose 14.5 per cent to $4.77 billion, though much of the extra cash went to cover fuel costs, which leaped 56 per cent from the same period a year earlier.
“Energy continues to be a key growth driver,” said chief executive Tracy Robinson on a call with analysts.
Petroleum and chemical hauls brought in precisely $1 billion in revenue, 17 per cent more than last year. The tail end of a bumper grain crop also propelled a 19 per cent increase in that category.
While CN made no changes to its 2026 financial forecast, Robinson was upbeat about longer-term growth prospects under what she framed as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s more business-friendly government, and despite persistent tariff troubles that have hampered some sectors.
“The Carney administration has leaned into creating a more positive environment for investment,” she said, citing regulatory and tax changes, such as a provision that allows businesses to immediately write off 100 per cent of some investments.
Robinson pointed to growing investment in resource projects, including $2 billion from Ontario and Ottawa pegged for road infrastructure in the province’s mineral-rich Ring of Fire.
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“This is a very constructive environment and it’s focused on getting Canada’s natural resources, which are in high demand, to markets across the continent and around the world,” she said.
Robinson also noted that a deal in the works with the continent’s largest railway, Union Pacific, will give Canadian National access to Mexico’s manufacturing corridor. The “soon-to-be-finalized” agreement grants CN the right to run trains over UP tracks between Memphis and Eagle Pass, TX, which sits along the Rio Grande.
Centring on cars, manufacturing and food, trade between Canada and Mexico amounts to some US$45 billion dollars each year, “much of which is tied to Eastern Canada,” where CN has a more extensive rail network than rival Canadian Pacific Kanas City Ltd., she said. On the other hand, CPKC boasts the only network to span all three countries in North America, handing it even more fluid access to the Mexican market.
On the tariff front, trade along CN tracks has stabilized for now, with some auto, steel and forest shipments rerouted beyond the United States, executives said.
“There are some adjustments that have been made there around the kinds of markets that they’re shipping into,” Robinson said of the three sectors, which are subject to U.S. duties of between 25 and 50 per cent.
“We’ve overcome the $350 million of tariff headwinds from last year,” added chief commercial officer Janet Drysdale.
Domestically, CN faced an emergency in July when crews had to be evacuated from several trains stopped in their tracks by wildfires.
A video of one incident shared widely on social media showed a curtain of orange-red flames closing in on a locomotive near Armstrong, Ont., as trees burned on both sides of the tracks.
CN temporarily suspended rail operations in a portion of northwestern Ontario on July 13, halting all freight traffic along a stretch of main-line track crucial to cross-country hauls.
“The wildfires did disrupt us a little bit and that impacted mainly domestic, but it also impacted a little bit on the overseas side. We’re past that now,” Drysdale said.
Federal authorities are looking into whether the Montreal-based company broke the law.
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On Friday, CN said it earned $2.16 per adjusted diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of $1.83 per diluted share a year ago and beating analysts’ expectations of $2.10 per share, according to financial markets firm LSEG Data & Analytics.
“CN delivered yet another beat and (quasi) raise on a setup where expectations were muted,” said analyst Walter Spracklin of RBC Dominion Securities in a note to investors.
He said growth potential next year lies in the “idiosyncratic opportunities” CN enjoys through shipments of natural gas liquids such as propane out of Prince Rupert, B.C. That port, where CN is the sole rail provider, also saw the Canxport container facility open in August, allowing 400,000 more steel boxes to flow out of British Columbia each year.
On Thursday, CN announced that chief financial officer Ghislain Houle will step down on Feb. 1 after over 10 years in that role and three decades at the company. He will stay on as a strategic adviser through the end of March.
Jamie Lockwood, the vice-president of investor relations and special projects who first joined the railway in 2008, will replace him.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2026.
Companies in this story: (TSX:CNR, TSX:CP)
Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press
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