Rail innovators are providing answers to some of this country’s ‘big-picture’ questions

Canadian railroaders have always been innovators making exciting contributions to our country’s development.

To build and settle this country, railroaders imported still-nascent European technology and performed engineering marvels to push across the Prairies and to the Pacific.

Today, rail companies of all types and all sizes continue to apply new technologies in new ways in the search for new solutions to move people and goods across Canada and to markets around the world.

Rail innovations large and small are happening all the time. These are helping move more people and more product than ever before, safely & sustainably. Governments at all levels are acknowledging that rail is the way of the future, making investments in infrastructure and services for increased passenger and freight volumes.

Indeed, Canada has always had goods that others need and want. In this month’s features, you will read how innovation at Ontario Northland is helping to get rare minerals and other critical materials fundamental to modern technological needs from Northern Ontario to global manufacturers and consumers.

And, as more and more people from around the world choose Canada as a place to study, work, and raise their families, passenger rail will play an ever greater role in getting people around and between Canadian cities. As you will read below, that is prompting global transportation leaders like Siemens to invest heavily in Canada and grow their operations here.

Rail innovators are providing answers to some of this country’s ‘big-picture’ questions – social-economic, environmental, demographic, and many more. We are at a moment of opportunity and of collective responsibility to get our answers to these questions right.

Innovation is so much more than a buzzword in rail. It is an ethos. A way of doing. A way of being. It is so deeply ingrained in Canadian rail today that it’s prompting people to think differently about how rail can shape Canada’s future. As an industry, it doesn’t get much exciting than that.