Foreword

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"Rail in Canada, 2008" provides information on the size and structure of the Canadian rail transport industry. It contains a number of financial, operating and commodity origin and destination statistical tables.

The statistical tables in the publication are created from two annual surveys – the Annual Rail Survey and the Rail Commodity Origin and Destination Survey. As the objectives, coverage and methodologies of these surveys are not identical, information on each of these elements can be found in the section of this publication entitled ‘Data Quality, Concepts and Methodology —Data quality, concepts and methodology — Survey methodology, coverage and data limitations.

Attention Users!

The following changes in the coverage, data and format apply to this and prior publications:

1. Data published prior to 1997 conform to industry group 453 (Railway Transport and Related Service Industries). This grouping was part of the Standard Industrial Classification System (SIC), 1980, which was replaced by The North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), to allow for comparability with the United States and Mexico. Please refer to the section entitled ‘Data Quality, Concepts and Methodology —Data quality, concepts and methodology — Survey concepts and data limitations for more detail.
2. Statistics Canada is required by law to protect the confidentiality of the data supplied by survey respondents. However, for decades, railway operations were regulated through governmental approval of shipping rates. Hence, railway statistics were published in detail by carrier and by province/territory. Since deregulation in 1996, the railways can negotiate confidential contracts with shippers. To preserve confidentiality, data on commodity movements are presented by region. Mainline railways have granted permission to Statistics Canada in writing to report their financial and operating statistics as they appear in this publication.
3. The database containing data on financial and operational statistics from past annual reports from rail carriers operating in Canada underwent a major historical revision in March 2007. This major revision was carried out in order to ensure that industry data from 1986 to 1997, previously classified under the SIC 1980, would be directly comparable with all future industry data following the adoption of the NAICS by Statistics Canada in 1997. As a result of this revision, data from 1986 to 1997 can now be found on CANSIM.
4. The analytical portion of this publication provides text tables containing key variables for years 2004 to 2008.
5. In 2008, the survey universe was composed of 3 mainline carriers - Canadian National (CN), Canadian Pacific (CP) and VIA Rail, and 40 regional and short-haul carriers.
6. Financial, operational and origin and destination data may change on a year-to-year basis as a result of fluctuations in currency exchange rates, reclassifications of accounts, etc. Data are also influenced by mergers, acquisitions and companies which may enter or exit the industry.