Thanks, Jim.
Canadian National is the No. 1 lumber-hauling railroad in the U.S.
It takes particleboard out of British Columbia and moves it across the continent to where its needed.
If you see new homes or condos or apartments being built, chances are that the wood for them came by rail.
CN moves about a hundred-fifty thousand carloads of lumber every year, and most of it goes to the southeast and the west coast.
If you make an arc from Virginia, south and west through Texas and then continue it through California and Oregon, you’ll see where all that lumber goes.
Export lumber is also starting to get big, and much of it is heading to China.
Most lumber moves on special cars called center beam flats, and they’re super easy to load and unload with a forklift.
The 73-foot center-beam car carries the same products as a boxcar. In a unit train, they can carry a lot of lumber.
Canadian National owns or leases about 10,000 such cars.
