CN invests in grocery shipping containers

Canadian National Railway (CN) has purchased more than 1,000 containers to service Canada’s domestic grocery and consumer goods shipping business.

The investment will benefit the reliability of the supply chains for our grocery, consumer goods and manufacturing customers, said Jean-Jacques Ruest, CN chief marketing officer.

According to CN, its intermodal service that transfers containers between long-haul trains and short-haul trucks, is more cost-effective than truck while offering customers truck-like transit times and a lower carbon footprint.

Eighty per cent of the new containers are heated to carry "temperature-sensitive" goods year-round, while the rest are standard dry containers.

In 2010, the railway handled about 1.4 million intermodal carloads, worth $1.6 billion in revenues, up from 1.2 million carloads and $1.3 billion in 2009.