Image credit: Canadian National Railway
Canadian National (NYSE: CNI) yesterday unveiled plans to invest US$505 million in capital projects along its U.S. corridor spanning from Wisconsin to Louisiana.
In Illinois, CN plans to spend $190 million, which will include funding to add capacity at its Joliet intermodal terminal. In Louisiana, CN will spend $95 million, with part of that funding going to a multi-year project to rebuild a two-mile long bridge over a spillway near the southwest shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
In Tennessee and Wisconsin, CN will spend $100 million and $120 million, respectively. Capital spending in Wisconsin will include the construction of eight miles of double tracking near Hawthorne.
The capital investments are for planned expansions as well as for maintenance projects and the installation of positive train control and other technologies such as automated track inspection, distributed air cars and automated inspection portals. The maintenance projects include replacing rail track, installing rail ties, rebuilding road crossing surfaces and conducting repair work.
CN’s overall capital budget for 2019 is $2.9 billion. For this year and 2018, its capital budget is $5.7 billion.
The railway will announce its first-quarter 2019 earnings at 4:30 pm EDT on April 29.
