MONTREAL, March 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CN (TSX: CNR) (NYSE: CNI) announced today that, in the absence of significant illegal blockades on its network over the last four days, it has started calling back most of the temporarily laid off employees based in Eastern Canada.  

Over 1,400 trains, including passenger trains, were delayed or cancelled because of the blockades, causing shutdowns of parts of CN’s network as freight is parked across the network, ready to be moved.

“As the situation is stabilizing, we have started calling back most of the temporarily laid off employees based in Eastern Canada to move our customers’ goods as we continue to focus on a safe and progressive recovery,” said JJ Ruest, president and chief executive officer at CN. “While we are keeping a close watch on our network for any further disruptions, we are mobilizing our employees to be ready to implement a focused and methodical recovery plan for our Eastern network. The complete network recovery process will take several weeks. I wholeheartedly thank our customers, partners, stakeholders as well as all the various law enforcement agencies involved including CN Police Services for their patience, support, and understanding during this unprecedented ordeal. I also wish to recognize the very helpful support of the provincial Premiers and their respective governments and the involvement of the Federal Government.”

“In Western Canada, for the last two weeks, we have been well on our way to recovering. While we are aware that there is still work ahead of us, export grain, imported containerized goods, coal, potash, energy products, and other commodities are moving to markets. We are rebalancing our assets to service customer sites for loading,” explained Ruest.

CN is a true backbone of the economy transporting more than C$250 billion worth of goods annually for a wide range of business sectors, ranging from resource products to manufactured products to consumer goods, across a rail network of approximately 20,000 route-miles spanning Canada and mid-America. CN – Canadian National Railway Company, along with its operating railway subsidiaries – serves the cities and ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile, Ala., and the metropolitan areas of Toronto, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, Duluth, Minn./Superior, Wis., and Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America. For more information about CN, visit the company’s website at www.cn.ca.