Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
• Soo Line (owned by Canadian Pacific)
• Union Pacific
Both Canadian National and Canadian Pacific are large
enough to be considered Class I railroads by U.S. definition.
Together they employ some 38,000 people and operate over
nearly 40,000 miles of track in both Canada and the United
States, with 3,500 locomotives hauling more than 125,000
freight cars on a typical day. South of our border, two big rail-
roads—Ferromex and Kansas City Southern de México—operate
throughout Mexico, and both of them also meet the Class I stan-
dard for the size and scope of their operations. These are the only
large freight railroads remaining after the financial wreckage and
bankruptcies of the late '60s and the mergers and acquisitions
that occurred over the last 20 years or so.
It really takes a cross-country train trip before most of us
realize how extensive the country's system of freight railroads
really is. Freight trains haul every conceivable type of commod-
ity, but coal is still number one. It accounts for about 20 per-
cent of all freight revenues. From just one huge mine in Wyo-
ming, a train pulling 110 cars loaded with coal for Midwestern
power plants travels east to the Chicago area every single day
of the year. You'll see a number of these trains on almost any
of Amtrak's long-distance routes. You'll also begin to appreciate
the immense capacity of the grain-producing areas of this conti-
nent when you pass trains pulling a hundred or more hopper cars
filled with wheat or corn. A special “express freight” runs several
times a week carrying California's fresh produce in refrigerated
cars direct to a distribution center in New York. Then there are
the trains hauling chemicals, frozen food, motor vehicles, petro-
leum, minerals, lumber, paper, scrap metal, and—well, you name
it, and it moves by rail.
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