(Railfanning.org News Wire) — Canadian National’s third-quarter revenue rose 15%, and profit increased 6%, but operating expenses consumed a larger share of revenue as freight volume grew and several service measures slipped.
- Revenue: C$4.77 billion, up 15% compared with the same period in 2025
- Net income: C$1.21 billion, up 6%
- Diluted earnings per share: C$2, up 9%
- Adjusted diluted earnings per share: C$2.16, up 18%
- Operating ratio: 63.7%, up 2.3 percentage points
- Adjusted operating ratio: 61%, down 0.4 percentage points
- Freight volume: 59.4 billion revenue ton-miles, up 4%
What drove it: CN cited demand in grain and energy markets and operational changes through its Fast Track initiative. Operating income increased 8% to C$1.73 billion, while operating expenses per gross ton-mile rose 14%.
Worth watching: Reported and adjusted results tell different stories about operating efficiency. The reported operating ratio increased, meaning expenses consumed more of each revenue dollar, while the adjusted ratio declined. The supplied release excerpt did not explain the adjustments behind that difference.
On the railroad: CN reported record third-quarter fuel efficiency, improving 2% from a year earlier. Employee productivity, measured by gross ton-miles per average employee, increased 7%.
Other measures weakened. Car velocity and through-network train speed each declined 2%, while through dwell, a measure of time spent at terminals, increased 1% to 7.1 hours.
What’s next: CN maintained its forecast for mid- to high-single-digit growth in adjusted diluted earnings per share and said results were tracking toward the upper end of that range. It continues to expect low-single-digit growth in revenue ton-miles and approximately C$2.8 billion in capital investment, net of customer reimbursements.
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